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Mound  Builders 
of  Illinois 


THROOP 


|MHM 


The  Great  Monks'  Mound  (also  called  the  Cahokia  MounW)°L5I]M?4FJ 
feet  high,  occupies  a  base  1,080  feet  long  and  710  feet  wide,  and  covers 
approximately  17  acres  of  ground.     The  tumulus  contains  over  1,500,- 
000  cubic  yards  of  earth. 

"Monks'  Mound  is  the  greatest  aboriginal  tumulus  in  the  United 
States  and  is  more  than  treble  the  size  of  any  other  similar  structure  of 
the  same  area.  It  is  the  most  striking  figure  of  the  Cahokia  Group, 
which  was  originally  the  central  feature  of  several  hundred  mounds 
within  a  radius  of  six  miles.  Nothing  like  a  systematic  exploration,  or 
study,  of  this  rich  archaeological  field  has  yet  been  made,  and  the 

Aboriginal  paintings  and  carvings  on  cliffs  and  in  caves  occur  in 
all  countries  of  the  earth.  "Over  there"  they  developed  into  heiro- 
glyphics  and  finally  the  alphabet.  "Over  here"  they  never  developed 
beyond  the  symbolic  stage. 

Mr.  Wm.  McAdams  in  his  "Records  of  Ancient  Races,"  1887, 
page  21,  says  in  speaking  of  the  above  illustrated  paintings:  "Some 
three  or  four  miles  above  the  city  (Alton),  high  up  beneath  the  over- 
hanging cliff,  which  forms  a  sort  of  cave  shelter,  on  the  smooth  face 
of  a  thick  ledge  of  rock,  is  a  series  of  paintings,  twelve  in  number. 
(They  are  now,  in  1928,  utterly  destroyed.)  They  are  painted  or 
rather  stained  in  the  rock  with  a  reddish-brown  pigment  that  seems  to 
defy  the  tooth  of  time.   *   *   *  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  their  posi- 


jnd  (also  called  the  Cahokia  Mound)  W1YV4 
e  1.080  feet  long  and  710  feet  wide,  and  covers 
of  ground.     The  tumulus  contains  over  1,500,- 


3fk0/j<i 


head,  under  auspices  of  the  Illinois  Uni- 
ustive  explorations  during  the  spring  and 
1  and   l!l2r>,  and  his  reports  arc   utv    hi 

-  hamlicapp y  Lick  of  funds  to  make 

and  thorough  as  he  would  liked  to  have 
mil  awaken  to  the  importance  of  placing 
till  hands,  and  then  many  things  of  tre- 
mce  will  no  doubt  he  unfolded. 


cliffs  and  in  caves  occur  in 
they  developed  into  heim- 
lere"  they  never  developed 


Aboriginal  paintings  and  can 

intries  oi   the  earth.     "Ovei 

a  I. \  phi.  -  and  finally  the  alphabet, 
beyond  the  symbolic  stage. 

Mr  Wm.  McAdams  in  his  "Records  of  Ancient  Races,"  18X7 
page  21,  savs  in  speaking  of  the  above  illustrated  paintings:  "Bona 
three  or  four  miles  above  the  city  (Alton),  high  up  beneath  the  over 
hanging  cliff,  which  forms  a  sort  of  cave  shelter,  on  the  smooth  tact 
of  a  thick  ledge  of  rock,  is  a  series  of  paintings,  twelve  in  number 
(They  are  now.  in  1928,  utterly  destroyed.)  They  are  painted  oi 
rather  stained  in  the  rock  with  a  reddish-hn.u  „  pigment  that  seems  t, 
defy  the  tooth  of  time.   *   *   *   It  may  be  said,  however,  that  their  posi 


|  tion  is  so  sheltered  that  they  remain  almost  perfectly  dry.  We  made 
Sketches  of  them  thirty  years  ago  (1857)  :  and  on  a  recent  visit  could 
see  that  they  had  changed  but  little,  although  their  appearance  de- 
notes great  age.     They  doubtless  have  been  there  for  centuries. 

"These  pictographs  are  situated  on  the  cliff  more  than  a  hundred 
feet  above  the  river.  A  protruding  ledge,  which  is  easily  reached 
from  a  hollow  in  the  bluff,  leads  to  the  cavernous  place  in  the  rock: 
and  while  one  is  safe  from  rains  or  storms,  he  has  a  splendid  view,  not 
only  of  the  Mississippi,  whiifh  flows,  a  mile  in  width,  in  majesty  below, 
but  of  the  cultivated  bottom  lands  on  the  opposite  shore,  and  beyond, 
the  turbid  waters  of  the  Missouri, — one  of  the  most  magnificent  scenes 
of  this  romantic  locality." 


Mound  Builders 
of  Illinois 


DESCRIPTIVE  OF  CERTAIN  MOUNDS  AND  VILLAGE 

SITES  IN  THE  AMERICAN  BOTTOMS 

AND  ALONG  THE  KASKASKIA 

AND  ILLINOIS  RIVERS 


BY 

ADDISON  J.  THROOP 


CALL    PRINTING    COMPANY 

EAST    ST.   LOUIS,    ILLINOIS 
1928 


Copyright  1928 
ADDISON  J.  THROOP 


PREFACE 

THE  most  interesting  study  for  mankind  is  man.  So  long 
as  life  remains,  to  the  student  is  unfolded  new  knowl- 
edge, new  interests.  To  delve,  in  imagination,  into  the  long- 
ago,  into  the  crude  beginnings,  finding  there,  perhaps,  evi- 
dences of  superior  culture  along  other  lines  than  our  own, 
certainly  is  fascinating  mental  exercise. 

Go  back  as  far  as  earth's  gaseous  beginnings  with  the 
geologist ;  go  with  the  archaeologist  back  to  mankind's  rudest 
beginnings ;  contemplate  reverently  the  tremendous  complex- 
ities and  wonders  of  mankind  to-day ;  visualize  with  Christian 
faith  the  future  development  of  man,  when  civilization  will 
have  embodied  the  divine  Hope  that  lies  within  mankind's 
very  soul,  and  we  are  but  brought  to  a  faint  realization  of 
the  infinite  love  of  an  Infinite  Father,  whose  Purposes,  deeply 
rooted  in  aeons  gone  by,  are  unfolding  by  laws  that  are  im- 
mutable. 

At  odd  times,  and  by  using  spare  moments,  we  have  writ- 
ten the  matter,  gathered  the  illustrative  material,  and  set 
the  type  for  this  little  book.  We  dedicate  it  to  a  better 
understanding  of  the  Red  People,  on  whose  lands  we  now 
live,  and  whose  village  and  burial  sites  are  now  teeming  with 
the  life  of  American  farms,  towns  and  cities. 

We  are  grateful  to  many  individuals  for  the  encourage- 
ment to  proceed  with  this  work,  and  especially  to  the  Rev. 
Albert  Muntsch,  S.  J.,  of  the  St.  Louis  University,  for  his 
kindly  interest ;  to  Col.  Sam.  N.  Hunter  of  the  East  St.  Louis 
Daily  Journal ;  Mr.  P.  B.  Corr,  of  the  Northwest  Territory 
Exposition.  We  are  also  grateful  to  Mr.  H.  M.  Braun  who 
furnished  so  many  of  the  illustrations  used  in  this  little  work ; 
and  to  Dr.  Don  F.  Dickson,  who  has  assisted  us  by  sending  in 
photographs  of  his  work  at  Lewiston.  The  photo  engravers, 
the  printers,  the  pressmen  of  our  shop,  the  Call  Printing  Co., 
too,  have  all  seemed  to  take  special  interest  in  working  on 
"The  Mound  Builders  of  Illinois." 


INDEX 


$ 


Mound  Builders  of  Illinois .y.<. 13 

Abundance  of  Flint  Hoes  in  "Bottoms"....^. 15 

Relics  of  Bone 15 

Relics   of   Seashell 16 

Pottery  of  the  American  Bottoms 17 

Relics  of  Wood,  Skin  and  Basketry  Missing 22 

Burial  Customs  23 

Can  We  Reconstruct  Life  by  Study  of  Burials? 24 

Stone   Graves   25 

Jackson   County  28 

Near  Roots,  Randolph  County 31 

Stone  Burials  Near  Fults,  Monroe  County 34 

St.  Clair  and  Madison  Counties 36 

Rattlesnake  Mound,  St.  Clair  County 38 

John  B.  Rolle  Village  Site,  St.  Clair  County 40 

Site  at  French  Village,  St.  Clair  County 42 

"Dickson's  Mound  Builders,"  near  Lewiston,  Fulton  County 47 

The   Original  Americans 56 

Virginia  Indians,  in  1584,  Were  Clean,  Thrifty 56 

Character  Qualities  of  Known  Red  Men 58 

Prof.  Moorehead  Pays  Tribute  to  Red  Race 59 

Ohio-Illinois  Indians  Were   Brave 60 

Unscrupulous  Traders  Curse  to  Indians 61 

Chiefs  Logan,  Cornstalk  and  Tecumseh  Were  Great  Men 61 

Too  Much  Emphasis  Placed  on  Battle-Cruelty 63 

Government  Made  Treaties;  Upheld  Trespassers 63 

Many  "Frontiersmen"  Were  Dissolute  Fellows 64 

Indians  Lived  Comfortably  in  Cabins 65 

Destroyer  Williamson  Meets  Real  Indian  Fighters 66 

Logan,  Great  Orator;  Tecumseh,  Great  War  Chief 66 

Prof.  Moorehead  Displays  Ancient  War  Flag 67 

Agriculture  of  the  Red  Men 68 

Hariot,  1587,  Describes  Crops  Cultivated 68 

Beverly  Gives  Evidence  of  Long  Cultivation  of  Maize 70 

Marquette  and  Others  Add  Interesting  Testimony 71 

Modern  Corn-Crib  of  Indian  Origin 72 

DeSoto's  Chroniclers  Tell  of  Abundant  Indian  Crops 73 

America's  Debt  to  the  Red  Men 74 

Did  Thousands  Leave  American  Bottoms  Suddenly? 76 

Injun  Stuff  (a  Poem) 78 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Cahokia  Mound,  from  Photo  Taken  in  1904 Insert 

Cliff  Carvings  from  near  Alton Insert 

Peterson's  and  McAdams  Map  of  the  Cahokia  Mounds Insert 

Flint  Tools  in  St.  Clair  County  Cache..... 17 

Notched  Hoes  Found  in  East  St.  Louis 18 

Flint  Spades  Found  near  East  St.  Louis 19 

Flared  Spades  from  Three  Neighboring  Counties. 20 

Flared  Spades  or  Hoes  from  the  American  Bottoms 21 

Various  Types  of  Notched  Hoes 22 

Interesting  Find  near  Centreville  Station,  St.  Clair  County 25 

Cahokia   Arrowheads. 26 

Persimmon  Mound 27 

Pipe,  Human  Figure,  from  Jersey  County 29 

Bowl,  Human  Head,  from  Blythesville,  Arkansas 30 

Pipe,  Frog  Figure,  from  near  Centreville,  St.  Clair  County 33 

Ceremonial  Sceptre  from  Mound  near  Cahokia 37 

Effigy  Pottery  of  the  American  Bottoms 41 

Dickson's  Mound  Builders,  Horizontal  View 49 

Dickson's  Mound  Builders,  "Bird's  Eye"  View 50 

Pottery  from  Dickson's  Mound - - - 51 

Pipes,  etc.,  from  Dickson's  Mound 52 

Collection  of  Arrowheads,  etc.,  from  Dickson's  Mound 54 

Effigy  Pot  and  Concretions  Found  in  Mound  and  Grave 55 

Vessels  from  Offermann's  Mound,  Monroe  County 57 

Dickson's  Unfinished  New  Work 75 

Our  Relic  Cabinet - - 79 


Mound  Builders 
of  Illinois 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


ILLINOIS  has,  without  doubt,  the  most  abundant  supply  of 
natural   essentials  for  the   development   and   support  of 
mankind  of  any  area  of  its  extent  in  the  world. 

Its  fertile  prairies,  its  verdant  woodlands,  its  beautiful 
lakes,  its  numerous  streams  and  its  sections  of  rock-bound 
hills,  made  it  a  veritable  paradise  for  the  development  and 
support  of  the  prehistoric  people  who  thrived  there.  Mod- 
ern man  has  cultivated  its  fertile  prairies,  harnessed  its  beau- 
tiful streams,  delved  into  its  rock-bound  hills,  bound  them  all 
together  with  magic  bands  of  steel  and  concrete,  for  the  swift 
distribution  of  the  abundant  production  of  the  essentials  so 
necessary  for  our  comfort  and  wellbeing. 

Prehistoric  man  found  ample  supply  for  his  simple  needs 
and  tribal  organizations  without  delving  into  the  refractory 
depths,  as  does  our  luxury-loving  man  with  his  complicated 
civilization,  to-day.  Food,  shelter  and  protective  raiment 
were  all  of  prehistoric  man's  personal  needs.  Tribal  organiza- 
tion was  necessary  for  his  continual  battle  against  the  inroads 
of  ravenous  beasts  and  greedy  human  rivals. 

The  American  Bottoms,  the  alluvial  bottomlands  border- 
ing the  Mississippi  River,  from  Alton  to  Chester  and  below, 
as  well  as  the  bordering  hills  on  both  sides  of  the  Father  of 
Waters,  show  abundant  proof  that  in  this  district  was  prehis- 
toric man's  greatest  development  north  of  the  Rio  Grande. 

At  East  St.  Louis  the  great  Cahokia  group  of  more  than 
eighty  tremendous  mounds,  containing  as  they  do  millions  of 
cubic  yards  of  dirt,  clearly  indicate  that  here  was  the  center 
of  a  numerous  and  age-old  prehistoric  human  habitation. 

These  people,  as  evidenced  by  a  wealth  of  relics,  traded 
far  and  wide,  from  the  Eastern  Alleghenies  to  the  Rockies  of 
the  West,  from  the  frozen  North  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 


11  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

TO  visualize  the  ancient  life  of  a  people  by  their  relics  of 
stone,  bone,  shell  and  clay,  may  be  impossible,  but  long 
acquaintance  and  much  study  of  their  burial  places  and  their 
camp  sites  should  enable  one,  to  some  extent,  to  arrive  at 
fairly  accurate  general  conclusions. 

It  would  be  open  to  argument  to  try  to  establish  the 
origin  of  these  peoples.  It  is  generally  maintained  by  writers 
and  scientists  that  the  prehistoric  Americans,  from  the  Arctic 
Circle  to  Cape  Horn,  were  Red  Men.  Therein  the  New  World 
differs  from  the  Old  World  in  its  ethnology,  because  over  there 
are  found  the  Caucasian,  the  Malay,  the  Negro,  the  Yellow 
races.  • 

The  beginnings  of  races  being  too  remote  for  the  writer, 
we  will  accept  the  hypothesis  that  the  prehistoric  residents  of 
Illinois  were  Red  Men,  pre-dating  the  advent  of  the  horse, 
which  animal  changed  the  habits  especially  of  the  Plains  In- 
dians from  sedentary,  industrious,  agricultural  people,  to 
roving,  predatory  creatures,  such  as  our  histories  tell  us  about. 

It  is  not  only  interesting,  but  we  believe  proper,  to  note 
briefly  the  radical  differences  of  the  prehistoric  peoples  of  the 
two  hemispheres.  The  Western  peoples  never  learned,  until 
the  advent  of  the  white  conquerors,  to  put  tools  on  their 
handles.  They  split  withes,  and  bound  with  rawhide  and  fibre 
the  handles  on  their  tools.  Here  they  never  invented  a  pot- 
tery wheel,  or  other  ordinary  uses  of  the  wheel.  They  did  not 
develop  the  metals  or  metallurgy.  Nowhere  has  the  prehis- 
toric American  evidenced  the  art  of  smelting  metals.  They 
used  the  iron  (hematite)  and  copper  just  as  they  were  found, 
chipping,  pounding,  grinding  them  into  ornaments,  tools,  arms 
and  charms  as  were  wanted.  The  use  of  galena,  quantities  of 
which  are  found  on  campsites,  caches  and  in  burials,  is  en- 
tirely problematical,  with  the  evidence  tending  to  show  that 
it  was  prepared  for  use  as  paint.  Certain  findings  in  the 
mounds  near  East  St.  Louis  would  lead  one  to  believe  that  they 
had  a  method  of  heating  or  chemicalizing  it  for  the  making 
of  their  white  paint. 

The  prehistoric  peoples  never — in  the  American  Bot- 
toms— conceived  the  idea  of  expressing  thoughts  by  inscribed 
heiroglyphics  or  letters.     Such  fixing  of  thought  was  done  by 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  15 

imagery  in  artistic  effigy  pottery  and  stone.  Occasionally 
carvings  on  stone,  in  caves  and  sheltered  cliffs,  indicate  the 
rudiments  of  such  ideas,  but  the  meaning  of  the  carvings  is 
clear  only  to  the  ancient  individuals  who  so  laboriously  made 
them. 

The  relics  of  flint,  stone  and  bone  are  the  only  "reference 
books"  the  student  has  from  which  to  draw  conclusions. 

The  Mound  Builders,  who  have  left  their  great  earthen 
monuments  so  numerously  and  magnificently  in  the  American 
Bottoms,  were  an  industrious  people,  and  their  works,  their 
artifacts,  their  camp  sites,  together  with  the  situations  of  the 
mounds  and  sites,  make  an  interesting  study. 

ABUNDANCE  OF  FLINT  HOES  IN  BOTTOMS. 

Flint  was  procured  from  exposed  ledges  of  limestone, 
locally;  from  quarries  in  the  Ohio  "Flint  Ridge ;"  in  the  nearby 
Ozarks;  from  the  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  mountains,  and 
was  their  universal  material  for  the  making  of  knives,  arrow 
and  spearheads,  adzes,  chisels,  digging  and  scraping  tools. 

The  flint  hoes,  finely  chipped  and  of  varying  size,  and 
the  great  numbers  that  have  been  found  in  the  American  Bot- 
toms, cause  one  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Mound 
Builders  were  a  people  given  to  agriculture.  In  fact  the  "gen- 
tlemen" Spaniards  who  accompanied  DeSoto  found  them  so, 
and  have  described  their  fields  and  crops.  They  were  the 
first  white  men  to  come  in  contact  with  the  Mississippi  River 
Indians,  and  say  that  from  one  village,  in  what  is  now  Arkan- 
sas, they  procured  corn  enough  to  last  their  600  men  and  200 
horses  for  three  months.  They  tell  us  that  besides  tobacco, 
the  natives  raised  popcorn,  yellow,  white  and  red  corn,  pump- 
kins, melons,  beans,  potatoes,  yams  and  many  other  vege- 
tables and  fruits  now  common  and  useful  to  us. 

RELICS  OF  BONE. 

Much  use  was  made  of  bone,  especially  of  the  deer  and 
bear.  Knives  were  made  from  the  bones  of  deer  which  are 
still  very  hard,  ivory-like  and  durable.     Long,  slender,  very 


16  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

sharp  implements  are  found,  as  well  as  shorter,  even  tiny 
needle-like  implements.  One  is  forced  to  the  conclusion  that 
such  were  used  as  needles  in  the  making  of  clothing,  mocca- 
sins and  the  like.  Others  were  used,  no  doubt,  as  engravers' 
tools,  in  the  marking  of  pottery  and  possibly  wood. 

Some  collectors  believe  the  smaller  needles  were  used 
for  tattooing,  as  so  many  primitive  people  mark  their  bodies 
for  ornamentation,  identification  or  in  following  out  some  pe- 
culiar "religious"  purpose. 

Bone  relics  are  scarce,  because  when  found  at  all  they 
are  quite  fragile  and  brittle,  and  the  amateur  collector  crushes 
them  or  passes  them  on,  not  realizing  their  ethnological  value 
in  his  collection.  It  is  difficult  to  save  them,  but  they  should 
be  saved,  for  they  add  a  whole  chapter  in  the  unwritten  his- 
torical value  of  one's  collection.  A  solution  of  white  gelatin, 
procurable  at  almost  any  drug  store,  will  preserve  them,  seem- 
ing to  feed  the  chalky  bones  until  one  can  handle  them  with- 
out danger  of  their  crumbling.  The  bones  should  be  dry  when 
dipped  in  the  solution. 

These  old  bone  needles  cause  one  to  visualize  the  matron 
or  maid,  carefully  perforating  for  the  insertion  of  the  sinew 
or  fibre  threads,  the  finely  tanned  doeskin  she  used  for  her 
babe's  dainty  clothing,  or  for  her  wedding  finery,  or  in  mak- 
ing for  her  Man  a  "brave"  and  beautiful  garment  which  would 
cause  him  to  appear  well  in  council  or  to  protect  him  on  the 
hunt  or  warpath. 

RELICS  OF  SEASHELL. 

One  is  always  interested  to  find  in  Illinois  anything  made 
of  seashell.  Hundreds  of  long  miles  from  seacoast  as  we  are, 
yet  we  find  seashells  in  the  burials  and  on  the  plowed  camp 
sites.  River  mussels  were  made  use  of  as  hand-hoes,  by  per- 
forating a  thumb-hole  in  the  thickest  part  of  the  shell.  Others 
were  evidently  used  as  spoons.  Also  they  valued  them  as  or- 
naments, and  shells  are  found  highly  polished,  with  perfor- 
ated borders  and  engraved  with  what  appears  to  be  highly 
complicated  artistic  figures  of  human  beings,  birds,  animals  or 
geometrical  designs. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 
POTTERY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  BOTTOMS. 


17 


Pottery  offers  the  student  the  best  means  of  visualizing 
these  departed  peoples,  and  the  American  Bottoms  furnish 


FLINT  TOOLS   IN    ST.  CLAIR 
COUNTY  CACHE 


Caches  of  flint  tools  and  pro- 
jectile points  have  been  numerous 
in  St.  Clair  county,  and  are  food 
for  thought.  Without  horses  or 
like  methods  of  overland  transpor- 
tation, it  became  necessary,  when 
the  need  for  moving  arose,  to  hide 
the  heavy,  bulky  utensils  of  the 
field  and  village.  Mr.  H.  M. 
Braun  of  East  St.  Louis  came 
into  possession  of  such  a  cache 
found  in  the  spring  of  1897  by 
Michael  Pflugmacher,  three  miles 
southwest  of  Belleville,  in  Stookey 
township,  St.  Clair  County.  Be- 
sides the  spade  here  illustrated, 
which  was  15%  inches  long,  very 
thin  and  finely  chipped,  were  found 
four  fine  flared  flint  hoes,  three 
polished  flint  chisels,  a  turtleback 
blade,  a  six-inch  blade,  a  celt  and 
a  cupped  stone. 

Whether  this  cache  represented 
the  labor  of  one  man  or  more,  does 
not  matter,  but  it  is  interesting  to 
note  the  two  types  of  hoes  in  th3 
same  cache. 


18 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


the  largest  variety  of  any  section  of  our  great  Middle  West. 

Remember,  no  wheel  was  used  in  the  making  of  prehis- 
toric Indian  pottery.  It  was  many  times  painted  and  pol- 
ished, but  not  glazed  after  the  modern  or  European  manner. 
Some  pottery  makers  were  very  skillful  and  artistic.  Some  of 
the  ware  is  almost  as  hard  as  china,  and  yet  we  doubt  that 


NOTCHED  HOES  FOUND  IN  EAST  ST. 
LOUIS 


In  the  spring  of  1912,  workmen  who 
were  excavating  a  trench  at  Fifteenth 
Street  and  Illinois  Avenue,  in  East  St. 
Louis,  unearthed  the  cache  of  notched 
hoes  shown  herewith.  Mr.  H.  M.  Braun, 
in  whose  collection  they  were,  has  grace 
ously  presented  us  with  the  cut. 

Notched  hoes  are  peculiarly  the  pro- 
ducts of  a  race  of  people  who  inhabited 
the  American  Bottoms,  and  we  believe 
their  "home"  was  here  at  East  St.  Louis, 
because  of  the  great  numbers  formerly 
found  here. 

At  the  National  Stock  Yards,  over 
twenty-five  years  ago,  in  taking  away  a 
huge  mound,  were  found  great  numbers, 
and  many  caches  have  been  found  here. 

The  "spread"  of  these  old  implements 
of  agriculture,  to  our  knowledge,  extends 
somewhat  up  the  Ohio  River,  and  into 
Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  as  well  as  south- 
eastern Missouri,  and  in  Arkansas.  Thou- 
sands of  notched  hoes  are  preserved  in 
the  collections  of  Dr.  H.  M.  Whelpley,  de- 
ceased, of  St.  Louis,  and  of  Mr.  E.  W 
Payne  of  Springfield,  this  state.  Other 
thousands  are  in  eastern  collections ;  many 
have  been  sent  to  museums  and  collectors 
abroad. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


19 


it  was  burned  as  our  own  finished  pottery.  From  the  fact 
that  so  much  of  it  contains  a  large  proportion  of  pounded 
shell,  it  seems  to  us  that  it  was  made  cold,  similar  to  our 
concrete  or  plaster  mixtures,  then  sun-dried,  after  which  it 
may  have  been  buried  in  hot  wood  ashes  or  coals  to  "cure"  it. 
Handles,  in  some  instances  at  least,  were  placed  on  the 


FLINT    SPADES    FOUND    NEAR 
EAST  ST.  LOUIS 


Flint  spades  like  the  one  here 
illustrated  have  been  found  in 
great  numbers  in  the  American 
Bottoms,  especially  in  the  area 
now  occupied  by  East  St.  Louis 
and  its  environs,  as  well  as  among 
the  mounds  of  the  great  Cahokia 
Mounds  State  Park  Group.  This 
specimen  was  found  in  this  neigh- 
borhood and  was  in  the  collection 
of  Mr.  H.  M.  Braun.  It  is  a  very 
fine  specimen,  fifteen  inches  in 
length,  of  artistically  chipped  flint, 
very  thin;  has  a  glassy  polish  at 
the  bit  from  being  used  in  the  dirt 
as  a  garden  or  field  tool. 

It  is  supposed  that  handles  were 
bound  onto  such  spades  by  using 
an  ell-shaped  tree  branch  and  raw- 
hide. Experiments  show  that  thus 
hafted  it  becomes  a  serviceable 
garden  tool,  with  which  corn, 
beans,  melons,  tobacco,  gourds  or 
other  garden  truck  could  be  suc- 
cessfully cultivated. 


20 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


vessels  by  boring  holes  in  the  sides  of  the  partly  cured  vessel, 
then  placing  on  the  handles,  forcing  them  through  the  holes 
and  smoothing  each  side  so  that,  unless  one  breaks  a  handle 
from  the  pot,  it  seems  to  be  molded  in  its  place. 

The  pots  are  made  melon  or  squash-shaped,  in  animal  de- 
signs, and  ducks,  owls,  eagles,  bears,  deer,  frogs,  fish,  human 
faces  and  figures  are  depicted  in  pottery.  Seashells  were 
imitated  almost  perfectly,  just  as  they  would  cut  a  shell  to 


FLARED     SPADES     FROM 

THREE  NEIGHBORING 

COUNTIES 


The  flared  spades  or  hoes 
are  interesting,  and  seem  to 
cover  a  wide  range  of  territory. 
They  are  made  of  various  kinds 
and  colors  of  flint.  The  four 
specimens  here  illustrated,  read- 
ing from  the  top  down  are  as 
follows :  found  by  Miss  Tebow, 
on  the  KeifTer  farm,  near  Casey- 
ville,  just  east  of  East  St. 
Louis;  near  Collinsville,  Madi- 
son county;  near  Posey,  Clinton 
county;  near  Edwardsville,  in 
Madison  county.  They  were  in 
the  collection  of  Mr.  H.  M. 
Brann,  to  whom  we  are  indebt- 
ed for  the  cur. 

If  a  certain  tribe  or  nation 
of  Red  Men  made  only  flared 
spades,  they  either  migrated 
over  a  great  territory,  or  they 
were  a  very  numerous  people 
occupying  it.  They  are  found, 
we  believe,  in  parts  of  Ohio, 
Indiana,  Kentucky,  Tennessee, 
Arkansas,  Missouri  and  South- 
ern Illinois. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


21 


make  it  a  useful  vessel.     Bowls  and  saucers  and  occasionally 
plates  are  found. 

Colored  pottery  sherds,  usually  red,  are  found  frequently 
on  plowed  camp  sites,  where  they  lie  exposed  to  rains,  snows, 
freezes  and  hot  sunshine,  still  appearing  fresh,  and  the  col- 


FLARED  SPADES  OR  HOES 

FROM  THE  AMERICAN 

BOTTOMS 


These  five  specimens  from 
Mr.  H.  M.  Braun's  collection, 
were  all  found  in  the  Ameri- 
can Bottoms.  Reading  from  the 
top,  as  on  page  16,  they  were 
found  as  follows:  Will  Pow- 
ell, between  Canteen  Creek  and 
the  Collinsville  Road,  in  Madi- 
son county;  on  August  Adele 
farm  near  Cahokia;  just  west 
of  Caseyville,  St.  Clair  county; 
near  Edwardsville ;  a  half  mile 
west  of  Imbs  Station,  St.  Clair 
County.  This  group  of  flared 
spades  show  a  great  variance  in 
shape  and  material. 

Inasmuch  as  each  modern 
tribe  of  Indians  has  some  indi- 
vidual characteristic  in  his  man- 
ufacture of  arrows,  bows,  etc., 
so,  we  believe,  the  ancient 
tribes  had  certain  individual  or 
tribal  characteristics  in  the  mak- 
ing of  their  arrow  and  spear 
points,   axes,   spades   and   hoes. 


22 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


oring  matter  so  soft  that  it  adheres  to  one's  lingers. 

In  size  the  vessels  vary  from  about  a  gill  to  several  gal- 
lons in  capacity.  In  thickness  they  run  from  thick  cardboard 
to  about  half  an  inch. 

RELICS  OF  WOOD,  SKIN  AND  BASKETRY  MISSING. 

Of  the  utensils  of  gourd  and  wood,  relics  are  very  rare. 
These,  like  the  skin,  basketry  and  feather  work,  have  disin- 
tegrated with  the  ravages  of  the  years.  In  the  mounds  and 
burials  no  appreciable  relics  of  such  material  have  been  found. 
A  few  bits  of  woven  fabric  were  found  during  the  summer  of 
1927  by  Mr.  Ben  Woesthaus,  in  a  burial  on  the  bluffs  east  of 
East  St.  Louis.  The  fabric  was  lying  beneath  the  knee  of  the 
burial,  the  bones  of  which,  from  the  neck  down  showed  pos- 
itive evidences  of  quite  thorough  burning.  Mr.  Woesthaus 
managed  to  save  a  piece  possibly  two  square  inches  in  dimen- 
sion, carefully  mounting  it  on  a  card,  under  glass. 

In  very  dry  caves,  relics  of  gourd,  wood,  basketry,  fibre 
and  cloth  have  been  found  and  saved. 


VARIOUS  TYPES  OF  NOTCHED  HOES 

A  collection  such  as  Mr.  Braim  had  furnishes  many  instances  which 
cause  one  to  think.  Beautiful  notched  hoes  are  found  over  a  somewhat 
restricted  territory.  True,  they,  like  the  flared  spades,  are  found  on  the 
Ohio  River  and  its  tributaries;  but  East  St.  Louis,  we  believe,  was  the 
"home"  of  the  notched  hoe.  The  center  piece  above,  a  beautiful  piece, 
was  found  just  south  of  Eads  Bridge,  near  the  river;  the  lefthand  hoe  was 
found  near  Collinsville;  the  righthand  hoe,  near  Lebanon. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OP  ILLINOIS  23 

BURIAL   CUSTOMS 


IT  is  difficult  for  us,  accustomed  as  we  are  to  the  telephone, 
newspaper,  mail  service,  radio,  steam,  electric  and  gaso- 
line transportation,  to  imagine  conditions  lacking  all  of  these 
things. 

We  hardly  understand  the  Scottish  Clans  of  many  decades 
ago,  their  enmities,  their  differing  customs  and  dialects,  oc- 
curring in  glens  or  valleys,  separated  by  mountainous  hills, 
yet  apart,  "as  the  crow  flies,"  but  a  few  miles.  This  con- 
dition existed,  but,  of  course,  at  a  time  before  modern  means 
of  thought  transference  and  rapid  transit  eradicated  the  ig- 
norance of  one  people  as  regards  another,  and  which  give 
us — or  should  give  us — understanding  and  a  feeling  of  kin- 
ship to  our  fellow  men. 

One  must  visualize  the  ancient  peoples  of  Illinois  in  much 
the  same  manner  as  the  ancient  Scots.  The  tribes  or  villages 
on  the  Illinois  River,  no  doubt,  differed  materially  in  customs 
from  the  tribes  or  villages  on  the  Kaskaskia  or  other  rivers. 
Not  having  books  and  letters,  knowledge  necessarily  was 
transmitted  by  example  and  word  of  mouth.  Therefore  the 
learned  of  a  tribe  must  have  been  after  the  manner  of  the 
Siouan  or  other  modern  Indian  "Medicine  Men."  While 
these  men  were  taught  by  their  predecessors,  each  one,  with- 
out doubt,  interpolated  into  his  ceremonies,  his  prayers,  his 
magic,  personal  idiosyncracies  and  "discoveries"  of  his 
own,  and  his  teachings  would  impress  his  tribe  differently,  and 
cause  a  variance  in  tribal  customs  of  living  and  of  burial  even 
of  those  of  the  same  "nation." 

This  individualism  would  explain  the  differences  found  in 
similar  shaped  mounds.  It  is  impossible  to  choose  a  pyra- 
midal, sugar  loaf,  oblongated,  oval,  truncated  pyramid,  effigy, 
high  or  low  mound  and  say  that  "this  shape  contains  certain 
burials,  this  shape  without  burials,"  and  that  another  shape  is 
strictly  for  "temple"  purposes. 

It  seems  that  each  tribe  or  nation  built  mounds  with  some 
generally  accepted  kindred  purpose.     Practically  all  of  the 


24  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

mounds  contain  unmistakable  evidences  of  careful  building, 
sometimes  apparently  for  religious  uses. 

It  has  been  our  privilege  to  witness  much  excavating  of 
mounds  and  ancient  graves,  and  we  have  been  moved  to  deep- 
est reverence  at  the  evidence  of  the  painstaking  labor  in 
their  construction. 

CAN  WE  RECONSTRUCT  LIFE  BY  STUDY  OF  BURIALS? 

If  one  were  to  attempt  to  describe  America  as  it  is  to-day, 
just  how  would  we  come  at  the  subject?  Especially  would  it 
be  difficult  to  describe  it  to  one  who  was  totally  unacquainted 
with  modern  America. 

If  all  we  had  to  picture  America  in  1928  were  our  burial 
places,  would  it  be  possible  to  literally  reconstruct  the  life 
of  to-day  ?  Verily,  one  would  find  these  burials  as  diverse  in 
custom  as  are  the  lives  of  the  members  of  our  various  denom- 
inations. However,  without  the  modern  "conveniences" 
which  cause  unnumbered  complications  of  living  and  differing 
conditions,  life  would  of  necessity  be  more  simple. 

Life  in  ancient  times  was  filled,  no  doubt,  with  desires 
for  love,  for  power,  for  ease  in  living,  for  solution  of  the  sun's 
rising,  for  the  answer  to  the  shining  of  the  moon,  for  the  an- 
swer to  what  seems  the  inherent  belief  or  hope  of  all  man- 
kind— of  Life  itself — whether  or  not  it  continues  after  dissolu- 
tion. 

The  philosophy  of  the  ancient  Indians  is  known  to  us  only 
as  we  find  it  expressed  in  their  mounds,  graves  and  the  poor 
relics  found  on  camp  or  village  sites.  The  work  of  their  hands 
that  have  resisted  unknown  ages  of  time,  the  manner  of  bur- 
ial, food  bowls,  stone  tools  and  projectile  points  and  knives, 
remain  to  tell  us  their  mute  story  of  the  life  of  a  primitive  peo- 
ple that  developed  and  became  great  along  the  simplest  pos- 
sible lines. 

It  is  impossible  to  delve  into  all  the  many  thousands  of 
graves  and  mounds  and  to  explore  the  innumerable  ancient 
camp  sites.  It  would  be  impossible  to  tell  a  comprehensible 
story  of  the  total  findings  even  were  one  able  to  do  so.  How- 
ever, as  we  believe  that  if  one  could  describe  any  one  typical 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


25 


American  individual  he  would  be  telling  a  great  deal  of  mod- 
ern America,  so  we  here  describe  a  few  typical  Indian  burials, 
in  the  hope  that  our  findings  may  shed  a  little  light  on  the  cus- 
toms of  the  ancient  pre-Columbian  Red  Men  of  Illinois. 


INTERESTING  MOUND  FIND,  NEAR  CENTREVILLE  STATION, 
ST.  CLAIR  COUNTY 


These  relics  were  taken  from  a  low  mound  at  the  foot  of  the  bluffs 
east-southeast  of  East  St.  Louis,  near  Centreville  Station,  and  are  now 
in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Wm.  E.  Herrington  of  this  city.  Numbers  1,  2,  3 
and  4  are  wonderful  specimens  of  unfinished  pipes,  clearly  showing  that 
the  shaping  of  the  objects  from  the  rough  stone  thus  far  was  accomplished 
by  a  pecking  process.  Numbers  3  and  4  are  partly  drilled,  and  all  are 
of  very  hard,  refractory,  grainless  stone.  Number  5  is  a  spade,  rather 
thick,  well  chipped,  with  polished  bit,  made  of  pinkish  flint,  length  nine 
and  three-fourths  inches.  Number  6  is  a  beautifully  polished  celt  of 
mottled  granite.  Numbers  7  and  8  are  pottery  sherds  of  thin  ware,  nicely 
finished,  unornamented.  Number  9  is  a  "bone  needle  sharpener,"  of  white 
sharp  sandstone.  On  the  dark  card,  lower  center,  are  some  arrowheads, 
a  very  fine  spearhead,  a  good  knife  blade.  Near  the  mound  are  to  be 
found  abundant  evidences  of  a  large  prehistoric  settlement.  Immediately 
north  is  a  bubbling  creek  of  clear  water,  and  to  the  west  lay  the  southerly 
end  of  old  Pittsburg  Lake,  formerly  a  fine  body  of  water,  extending  west- 
erly five  miles  or  more  into  East  St.  Louis  corporate  limits. 


26 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


At  the  Cahokia  group  have  been  found  tens  of  thousands  of  arrowheads, 
similar  to  the  ahove,  generally,  in  shape.  Collectors  as  a  rule  name  them 
"Cahokia  points."  Invariably  of  beautiful  craftsmanship,  some  are  marvel- 
ously  chipped  to  knifelike  fineness  of  edge.  The  materials  used  indicate  some- 
what the  tremendous  range  covered  by  those  Cahokia  warriors.  Obsidian, 
calcedony  and  quart/,  from  the  western  Rockies,  copper  from  the  Lake  Superior 
region;  clear  crystal,  dark,  bluish  veined  hint  from  Ohio,  Tennessee  and  Ken- 
tucky; pure  white  flint  from  the  Ozarks;  red  flints  from  lower  down  in  the 
Arkansas  hills.  Other  jewel-like  materials  one  would  like  to  believe  came 
from  old  Mexico. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


STONE  GRAVES 


STONE  GRAVES  are  found,  to  personal  knowledge,  from 
above  Alton  to  Gorham.  We  have  read  that  they  are 
found  quite  generally  throughout  the  South  (especially  in 
Georgia)  and  up  the  Ohio  River  and  its  tributaries,  They 
have  been  found,  to  our  knowledge,  occasionally  in  Iowa  on 
the  Skunk  River. 

These  stone  graves,  like  the  mounds,  while  similar  in 
general,  has  each  one  its  individuality.  They  are  found  on 
the  limestone  bluffs,  and  in  country  miles  away  from  ex- 
posed limestone.  As  it  would  be,  to  our  minds,  impossible  to 
state  even  briefly  the  many  differing  ways  of  building  stone 
cists  or  graves  which  we  have  found,  we  will  not  attempt  a 
general  description.  It  will  be  better  to  content  ourselves 
with  a  few  observations  than  to  be  lost  in  the  maze  of  min- 
ute descriptions  of  the  many  which  we  have  seen  and 
explored. 

And  so  we  will  merely  tell  about  a  few  of  them,  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  territory  up  and  down  the  Mississippi  River 
from  East  St.  Louis. 


^'\;.. 


Persimmon  Mound -aem^  MonK/9  Mound. 


N 


28  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

JACKSON  COUNTY 


IN  SEPTEMBER,  1924,  on  the  invitation  of  Mr.  J.  Dan  Will 
of  Roots,  Randolph  County,  we  accompanied  him  on  an 
exploration  trip  in  Jackson  County. 

On  the  Mississippi  River  Bluffs,  a  few  miles  west  of 
Murphysboro,  there  is  an  extensive  ancient  Indian  cemetery 
of  stone  graves,  situated  on  a  high  ridge  between  the  bot- 
toms and  a  fair-sized  creek  which  comes  through  the  bluffs 
from  the  east  at  this  point. 

Much  work  had  already  been  done  by  various  persons  in 
times  past.  Many  great  slabs  or  "cap  stones"  were  scattered 
about,  showing  that  a  great  many  "resting  places"  had  been 
disturbed.  The  side  walls  of  many  explored  graves  could  be 
seen,  evidently  of  graves  which  had  been  built  very  close  to 
the  original  surface. 

After  digging  into  several  of  these,  we  finally  came  upon 
an  undisturbed  cap  stone  about  two  feet  below  the  surface. 
After  carefully  uncovering  the  entire  box  or  vault,  we  lifted 
the  cap  stone,  finding  the  cist  to  be  approximately  seven  feet 
long  by  twenty  inches  wide.  The  side  walls  were  made  by 
setting,  edgewise,  slabs  of  limestone  about  two  to  three  inches 
thick.  These  stones  had  been  broken  into  about  the  same 
sizes,  but  showed  no  evidences  of  having  been  trimmed  with 
tools.  Trenching  all  about  the  walls,  we  carefully  withdrew 
one  side  and  began  taking  away  the  sandy  clay. 

At  the  head  of  the  burial  we  found  a  great  chunk  of  red 
"paint  stone,"  which  we  judged  to  weigh  about  ten  pounds. 
Beneath  this  was  a  tent-like  structure  of  very  thin  limestone 
slabs,  which  had  been  built  over  the  face  and  head  of  the 
burial.  On  removing  the  dirt  from  the  entire  body,  we  dis- 
covered that  all  the  bones  below  the  skull  were  charred  from 
burning,  bits  of  charcoal  being  associated  therewith. 

The  body  was  flexed,  arms  at  side,  lying  on  its  back,  the 
general  direction  of  the  ridge.  No  artifacts  or  projectile 
points  were  discovered,  but  the  evident  care  of  the  burial,  the 
protecting  stone   "tepee"  over  the  head,  capped  as  it  was  by 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  29 

an  unusual  quantity  of  "paint  rock,"  led  us  to  believe  it  an 
"important"  burial.  The  good  contour  of  the  skull,  the  rest- 
ful attitude,  the  careful  construction  of  the  cist  of  heavy,  well 
chosen  stones,  which  must  have  been  carried  several  hundred 
yards,  together  with  the  evidences  of  thorough  burning, 
caused  queer  thoughts  to  course  through  our  minds.  As  if 
we  were  eye-witnesses  to  the  solemn  ceremonies  which  must 
have  attended  the  burial  of  this  ancient  Red  Man,  the  im- 


Wm.  McAdams  found  quite  a  number  of  these  "sphinx-like  images." 
The  frog  pipe,  on  page  33,  and  the  ab  ove  pipe  in  human  form  we  reproduce 
with  his  description,  from  his  "Records  of  Ancient  Races,"  1887.  He  says: 
"The  face  of  this  figure  is  a  fine,  expressive  one,  and  the  head  is  sur- 
mounted with  a  covering  as  though  of  some  fabric,  not  very  unlike  some 
of  the  head-dresses  shown  in  the  sculptures  exhumed  by  Layard  from  the 
ruins  of  Assyria.  It  is  a  sort  of  cap  of  folds,  the  end  of  the  fold  form- 
ing a  crest  or  knob  at  the  top.  *  *  *  It  is  considerably  larger  than  the 
frog-image  described  above ;  is  of  the  same  red  stone,  and  was  taken  from 
a  mound  on  Piasa  Creek,  a  few  miles  from  Alton.  *  *  *  Like  the  preced- 
ing image  (the  frog,  page  33),  it  is  highly  polished,  and  as  a  work  of  art 
has  certainly  no  small  degree  of  merit.'' 


10 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


pression  came  of  the  Reason  which  prompted  them.  The 
Man  himself  had  gone  to  the  Spiritland.  The  fleshly  remains, 
carefully  laid  to  rest  in  a  solid,  protecting  stone  grave,  were 
consumed  by  the  fire  and  given  to  the  god  of  the  Air,  while 
the  bones  were  given  to  the  god  of  the  Earth,  being  carefully 
covered  by  the  great  stone,  to  lie  throughout  untold  ages,  until 
the  cavity  of  the  cist  became  entirely  filled  by  the  filtering  in 
of  the  surrounding  clay.  Their  sacred  symbols  of  Life  seemed 
to  us  to  be  exemplified  as  fourfold — the  Spirit  to  the  Spiritual 
realm  ;  the  flesh  to  the  Air;  the  blood  to  the  Waters ;  the  bones 
to  the  Earth. 

Our  observations  made,  this  burial  was  carefully  re- 
placed, to  lie  undisturbed,  perhaps,  until  the  poor  bones  of 
this  Red  Man  are  indeed  absorbed  into  Mother  Earth. 


This  is  a  remarkable  life-sized  effigy  vase,  found  near  Blythesville, 
Mississippi  County,  Arkansas,  from  a  burial  site  that  was  being  washed 
away  by  river.  Mr.  H.  M.  Braun,  East  St.  Louis,  had  it  in  his  collection 
some  years  ago,  and  says  that  while  not  at  all  common,  Mr.  Clarence  B. 
Moore,  Philadelphia  Academy  of  Sciences,  has  described  dozens  of  them  in 
his  book  on  his  Arkansas  archaeological  work.  The  perforations  in  the 
ears  were  no  doubt  for  the  suspension  of  ornaments.  Perforated  fresh- 
water pearls  have  been  found  associated  with  burials,  in  great  quantities. 
The  protuberance  at  the  forehead  is  also  perforated,  possibly  for  the  fas- 
tening of  feathers,  which  held  a  religious  significance  to  the  Indians,  or 
some  other  form  of  distinguishing  ornament. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  31 


NEAR  ROOTS,  RANDOLPH  COUNTY 


MR.  WILL  is  an  ardent  student  of  archaeology,  and  by 
his  continued  interest  and  observations  since  early  boy- 
hood, he  has  amassed  a  wonderful  collection  of  the  relics 
of  prehistoric  Indians,  as  well  as  a  knowledge  of  the  burial 
places  and  village  sites  of  the  American  Bottoms  and  bluff 
lands,  especially  in  the  territory  from  the  mouth  of  the  Kas- 
kaskia  River,  up  that  river  to  Evansville,  and  the  country 
toward  the  Mississippi. 

On  our  return  from  Jackson  County,  we  explored  for  a 
day  in  a  very  interesting  burial  place  near  Mr.  Will's  home. 
His  father  had  done  extensive  work  here  in  years  gone  by  and 
it  was  some  little  time  ere  we  made  any  discoveries. 

Finally,  however,  beneath  a  disturbed  site,  we  discov- 
ered two  very  interesting  burials.  The  first  one,  about 
four  feet  down,  was  a  carefully-made  cist,  which,  when  the 
great  cap  rock  had  been  removed,  we  found  to  be  about  four 
feet  nine  inches  long  by  only  about  eleven  inches  wide.  On 
the  outside  of  the  cist,  at  fairly  regular  intervals,  we  found 
peculiar  naturally-shaped  pieces  of  "lime-drip/'  which  forma- 
tion occurs  in  the  fine  sand-like  clay  of  the  neighborhood. 
The  shapes  resembled  the  pottery-effigy  squatting  fat  woman, 
which  figure  is  found  depicted  in  pottery  vessels  throughout 
the  American  Bottoms  and  further  south  near  the  great  river. 
This  resemblance  was  vague,  somewhat  after  the  fancied 
image  of  the  ''man  in  the  moon"  or  faces  in  the  clouds  or 
rocks,  as  children  see  them.      (See  page  55.) 

The  skeleton,  apparently  that  of  a  youth,  was  lying  on 
its  back,  extended  full  length.  The  side  walls  fitted  quite 
snugly  against  the  skull  and  the  body  was  either  crowded  into 
the  cist  after  the  flesh  had  been  removed,  or  the  pressure  of 
the  settling  earth  pushed  the  sides  in  very  evenly  before  the 
cavity  was  finally  filled  by  the  sifting  action  of  the  fine  clay 
throughout  the  ages.     No  artifacts  or  stone  relics  were  found. 

The  second  burial  was  peculiar.  Bent  at  the  waist,  it 
lay  on  its  back.     At  its  head  to  the  left,  we  found  a  crude 


32  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

bottle-shaped  pot  of  about  three  pints  capacity.  The  legs 
bent  straight  down  from  the  hips.  At  about  the  waist  line, 
on  the  right,  we  found  a  well-made  pot  of  about  a  quart 
capacity,  with  an  animal  head  on  the  rim.  Later  when  Mr. 
Will  carefully  took  out  the  dirt  with  which  it  was  filled,  he 
discovered  a  polished  mussel  shell  "spoon"  very  nicely  in- 
cised, and  also  a  small  handled  pot  of  about  a  half  pint 
capacity. 

It  is  peculiar  how  the  apparently  solid  earth  fills  all 
cavities  of  these  carefully  made  stone  cists,  filling  even  the 
skulls,  whose  only  openings  into  the  brain  cavity  are  at  the 
entrance  of  the  spinal  cord  or  the  tiny  nerve  channels  of  the 
eye  and  ear  sockets. 

At  this  place  Mr.  Will,  some  years  prior  to  our  visit,  re- 
moved a  very  large  cap  stone,  beneath  which  was  an  exceed- 
ingly well-made  cist  about  fourteen  inches  in  length  by  about 
six  inches  wide.  The  bones  were  disintegrated  with  the  ex- 
ception of  particles  of  very  thin  skull,  which  were  encased 
in  one-half  of  a  broken  pot,  placed  over  the  tiny  head  by 
the  loving  hands  which  interred  it  so  long  ago.  One  small 
handled  pot,  about  one-fourth  pint  capacity,  was  found,  and 
it  was  found  bottom  up.  Whether  it  was  placed  in  this  man- 
ner at  the  time  of  interment  is  a  question.  One  can  imagine 
that  its  being  upside  down  was  to  indicate  that  the  immature 
life,  in  thus  leaving  its  loving  parents,  had  left  unfilled  the 
hopes  they  held  for  it.  Then  again  it  may  have  been  placed 
on  the  top  of  a  little  thickly  blanketed  and  be-feathered  fig- 
ure, and  as  the  ages  ate  the  fabrics  and  skins,  and  the  earth 
filtered  through  the  interstices,  its  foundation  crumbled  and 
the  tiny  pot  rolled  over  and  became  covered  over  in  its  fallen 
position. 

This  burial  site,  situated  about  half  way  up  the  steeply 
sloping  hill,  on  a  shelf-like  park,  overlooks  an  ideal  camp  site 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  where  the  hamlet  of  Roots  now  stands, 
and  on  the  bluff  above  it  are  ample  evidences  of  village  occu- 
pancy. 

A  sugar-loaf  mound  about  twenty  feet  in  diameter  by 
ten  or  twelve  feet  high,  "overlooks"  the  burial  site.  This 
mound  was  explored  some  years  ago  by  Mr.  Will  and  his 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


33 


father,  who  found  at  about  the  base   line  a  great  "wheel" 
made  of  a  conglomeration     in  which  pounded  shell  seemed 
to  predominate,  which  was  so  hard  it  was  very  difficult  to 
_vbreak.     Evidently,  as  the   Indians  knew  nothing  of  wheels 
<tenter,  and  was  probably  "big  medicine"  to  guard  the  buria 
Ijt  was  one  of  their  sacred  symbols,  a  circle  with  rays  to  the 
places  of  their  tribe's  departed  ones. 


The  above  is  "an  Altar  Pipe,  or  smoke-maker,  made  from  a  beautiful 
red  stone,  and  represents  a  huge  bullfrog,  which  held  in  its  right  forefoot 
or  hand  a  curious  sort  of  mace  or  sceptre-like  handle,  surmounted  at  its 
upper  end  with  a  ball  or  globe.  The  base  on  which  the  figure  sits  is  a 
parallelogram — and  the  whole  has  a  sphinx-like  appearance.  It  is  a  fine 
piece  of  stone  carving,  and  weighs  in  the  neighborhood  of  ten  pounds.  In 
the  back  of  the  image  is  a  funnel-shaped  opening,  the  smaller  end  of  which 
connects  with  a  similar  aperture,  like  the  bowl  of  a  pipe,  from  behind." — 
Records  of  Ancient  Races,  Wm.  MacAdam,  1887,  page  45-46.  With  this 
burial  Mr.  MacAdam  also  found  a  "crown-like  head-dress  of  copper,  that 
had  been  ornamented  with  pearls  and  pretty  figures  from  pearl  shell." 


3  I  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

STONE  BURIALS  NEAR  FULTS,  MONROE 

COUNTY 


JOHN  OFFERMANN  lives  on  a  large  farm  in  the  Ameri- 
can Bottoms,  near  Fults,  Monroe  County.  The  former 
owner  of  the  farm  was  a  descendant  of  the  early  French 
pioneers.  The  house  and  barn  are  situated  on  a  large  mound, 
and  the  ground  about  seems  to  have  been  an  old  island,  lake 
or  bayou  bank.  The  low  broad  ridge  extends  northwardly, 
and  about  three  hundred  yards  northeast  of  the  house  lies 
a  very  low  mound.  The  plow  would  strike  the  capstones, 
which  the  former  owner  did  not  disturb.  However,  Mr. 
Offermann,  being  very  practical  and  thrifty,  one  day,  with  his 
sons,  dug  out  the  offending  stones.  As  stone  in  this  alluvial 
soil  is  not  natural  so  near  the  surface,  they  worked  care- 
fully. 

It  is  not  known  exactly  the  number  of  burials  they  un- 
covered, but  it  was  an  extremely  interesting  group.  The 
bodies  were  flexed,  arms  at  side,  lying  on  their  backs.  In  one 
cist,  besides  pottery,  was  found  "two  water  bucketfuls"  of 
vermilion  colored  paint,  a  little  of  which  was  saved. 

One  individual  had  an  embossed  copper  plate  over 
his  face.  Beaten  very  thin  and  smooth,  it  had  been  embossed 
with  what  seemed  to  be  artistically-made  figures,  nearly  all 
lost  to  us  because  the  metal  was  badly  disintegrated.  The 
skull  was  entirely  green  from  the  copper  oxidization. 

No  particular  direction  of  the  burials  was  observed,  they 
merely  being  buried  closely  together,  with  the  stone  box  or 
cist  and  the  heavy  capstones,  similar  to  other  burials  in  the 
locality. 

Very  fine  specimens  of  pottery  were  recovered,  together 
with  a  very  finely  polished  gouge  of  yellow  and  cream  col- 
ored flint,  which  material  is  said  to  be  found  in  Union  County, 
a  hundred  miles  to  the  southeast.  The  size  of  this  beautiful 
gouge,  celt  or  hand  axe  is  9%x2%  inches,  has  an  exceedingly 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  35 

high  polish,  beautifully  shaped,  and  must  have  been  highly 
prized  by  its  original  owner.  It  is  now  in  possession  of  Mr. 
Edward  W.  Payne  of  Springfield,  who  has,  without  doubt, 
the  greatest  collection  of  specimens  of  artifacts,  arms,  orna- 
ments, projectile  points,  pottery  and  ceremonial  pieces  of  the 
prehistoric  Americans  ever  gathered  together.  He  has  also 
from  this  burial  place  a  quartz  gouge  5%  inches  long,  taper- 
ing to  a  half  inch  at  the  bit,  finely  polished  except  at  base, 
which  while  well  shaped,  retained  the  "bark"  or  weathered 
surface  of  the  quartz. 

Quite  a  quantity  of  galena  was  found,  some  of  which 
was  saved.  A  very  beautiful  plummet,  of  fine  balance  and 
shape  and  polish,  made  of  veined  light  and  dark  red  hema- 
tite, was  also  found. 

The  pottery  was  not  only  plentiful,  but  very  interesting, 
being  of  the  same  general  forms  and  effigies  common  to  the 
Cahokia  culture,  thirty-five  miles  north. 

The  site  at  present  is  far  from  water  that  could  be  navi- 
gated by  canoes.  However,  the  swayle  to  the  west  appeared 
to  us  as  though  it  may  have,  in  ancient  times,  afforded  plenty 
of  water  for  canoe  travel.  The  bluffs  are  two  miles  east, 
and  at  this  point  are  very  high  and  beautiful,  being  truly 
mountainous  limestone  cliffs.  As  some  of  the  capstones  were 
great  slabs  of  rock  requiring  the  entire  strength  and  ingen- 
uity of  two  strong  men  to  lift,  one  is  compelled  to  look  for 
other  agencies  than  mere  man-strength  to  learn  how  they 
were  transported  to  this  place.  The  logical  conclusion  ap- 
pears to  be  that  they  were  carried  on  rafts  or  in  great  war 
canoes. 

The  size  of  the  mound  where  Mr.  Offermann's  house  is 
located,  and  the  number  of  smaller  mounds,  situated  as  they 
are,  leads  one  to  believe  that  here  was  the  home  of  a  quite 
numerous  and  strong  tribe  for  a  very  long  period  of  time. 


36  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


ST.  CLAIR  AND  MADISON  COUNTIES 


ST.  CLAIR  and  Madison  Counties  must  have  been,  in  an- 
cient times,  the  ideal  locality  for  the  growth  and  pros- 
perity of  prehistoric  communities.  Almost  every  foot  of 
these  two  counties  has  yielded  relics  of  Indian  habita- 
tion, war  or  hunt.  The  great  Cahokia  Mound  group,  located 
;n  both  counties,  contains  some  eighty-four  well  denned 
mounds,  king  or  queen  of  which  is  the  great  Cahokia  Mound, 
which  towers  one  hundred  feet  above  the  surrounding  plain, 
is  one  thousand  and  ten  feet  long,  six  hundred  and  eighty  feet 
wide,  a  rectangular  truncated  pyramid,  standing  due  north 
and  south. 

Its  "head"  or  "graded  pathway"  to  the  south,  its  beau- 
tiful terrace  or  "apron"  on  the  south,  half  the  height  of  the 
summit,  its  graded  roadway,  winding  from  the  southwest  cor- 
ner up  the  western  side  to  the  summit,  its  regular  terraces 
dividing  the  top  in  half,  making  the  north  half  some  three 
feet  higher  than  the  south  half  of  the  summit,  make  it  an  im- 
posing sight  to  the  most  casual  observers.  The  top  contains 
approximately  two  acres.  This  old  mound,  covering  as  it 
does  approximately  seventeen  acres,  has  been  visited  by  sci- 
entists and  scholars  from  practically  every  civilized  country 
on  earth.  For  more  than  sixty  years  the  farm  on  which  it 
is  situated  has  been  the  home  of  the  Ramey  family,  who  have 
ever  welcomed  the  intelligent  interest  of  the  thousands  who 
have  visited  it  during  their  ownership. 

Their  desire  that  the  State  acquire  the  property,  and 
preserve  these  wonderful  works  for  the  study  and  enjoyment 
of  the  present  and  future  generations,  has  been  realized. 
This  was  not  accomplished,  however,  without  heavy  sacrifice 
on  their  part. 

As  this  group  and  immediate  territory  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  so  much  writing  and  exploration,  we  will  not  here 
attempt  to  even  partly  portray  its  greatness  and  wonders. 
Suffice  to  say  it  is  the  greatest  group  of  all,  and  it  is  inter- 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  37 

esting  to  note  the  evident  extended  influence  of  the  Cahokia 
culture  not  only  over  this  part  of  the  state,  but,  we  believe, 
well  into  the  states  of  Missouri,  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  Indiana 
and  Ohio,  along  the  rivers,  the  old  channels  of  commerce. 


This  "ceremonial  sceptre"  of  clear  white  flint,  eleven  inches  in  length, 
bit  polished  and  sharp,  is  truly  a  problematical  form.  Found  in  a  low 
mound  near  Cahokia,  in  which  was  also  plowed  out  an  interesting  stone 
idol,  causes  one  to  think  of  it  as  an  emblem  of  authority.  Its  practical 
use  may  have  been  as  a  hand  axe,  but  primitive  people  are  so  prone  to 
show  and  ceremony  that  it  seems  proper  to  classify  such  a  piece  as  a 
"ceremonial."  So  many  wonderful  things  have  been  found  near  East  St. 
Louis  that  we  feel  that  truly  this  locality  was  the  metropolis  of  aboriginal 
America.     Photo  by  courtesy  of  Mr.  H.  M.  Braun. 


38  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

RATTLESNAKE  MOUND— ST.  CLAIR 
COUNTY 


ABOUT  three-fourths  of  a  mile  south  of  old  Cahokia 
Mound,  on  ground  bought  for  the  enlargement  of  the 
Baltimore  &  Ohio  railroad  yards,  near  East  St.  Louis,  lies  the 
"Rattlesnake  Mound,"  so  named  by  early  pioneers  because  ot 
the  great  numbers  of  rattlesnakes  found  on  it. 

This  mound,  in  course  of  the  development  of  the  rail- 
road yards,  being  doomed,  the  Illinois  University  enlisted  the 
services  of  Prof.  Warren  K.  Moorehead,  of  Phillips  Academy, 
Andover,  Massachusetts,  to  explore  the  mound  in  the  spring  of 
1927.  The  active  work  was  in  charge  of  Mr.  Jay  L.  B.  Tay- 
lor, well  known  author  of  several  books  on  civil  engineering, 
text  books  for  U.  S.  Forest  Rangers,  etc.,  etc.  While  their 
work  yielded  little  in  the  line  of  stone  or  other  museum  relics, 
the  "negligible  findings"  were  keenly  interesting. 

Rattlesnake  Mound  is  approximately  five  hundred  feet 
long,  two  hundred  feet  wide,  thirty  feet  in  height.  The  top 
is  beautifully  rounded,  furnishing  an  ideal  situation  for  the 
four  roomy  tents  of  the  explorers'  party.  The  surrounding 
ground  is  very  low, .with,  however,  a  well-defined  graded  way 
running  due  north.  Messrs.  Jesse  and  James  Ramey,  who 
called  to  view  the  work,  stated  that  this  graded  pathway  ex- 
tended north  through  their  land  toward  the  mounds  imme- 
diately south  of  old  Cahokia. 

When  Mr.  Taylor  surveyed  the  mound  he  was  amazed  at 
the  accuracy  of  contour  maintained  by  the  builders,  and  ex- 
pressed himself  as  puzzled  that  so  great  a  pile  of  earth  could 
be  made  to  keep  so  nearly  true  its  contour  throughout  the 
ages.  At  points  two  hundred  feet  east  of  center  and  two 
hundred  feet  west  of  center,  less  than  one-tenth  of  a  foot  dif- 
ference in  elevation  was  found.  A  tangent  at  the  center 
point  was  but  five  degrees  off  from  the  true  north  at  this  time. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  39 

It  seems  incredible,  to  a  civil  engineer,  that  such  a  work 
could  be  constructed  so  accurately  without  the  use  of  instru- 
ments to  "check"  the  work  as  it  progressed. 

A  fifty  foot  trench  was  laid  out  through  the  middle 
of  the  mound,  and  work  was  started  at  the  southern  base 
line.  Progressing  through  the  admixture  of  heavy  black 
"gumbo"  and  clay  soils  a  matter  of  some  twenty  feet,  they 
struck  what  appeared  to  be  a  trench  burial  containing  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  individuals.  There  was  no  stone  in  the 
mound,  and  the  chemical  action  of  the  soils  used  had  disinte- 
grated the  bones  almost  entirely.  They  saved  a  few  skulls, 
which  were  small,  some  of  which  were  elongated,  others  short 
and  broad.  Usually  the  only  evidence  that  could  be  saved 
of  a  body  was  the  enamel  of  the  teeth,  which  had  resisted  the 
ravages  of  time  and  the  chemical  action  of  the  soils.  These 
burials  were  so-called  "bunch"  burials;  that  is,  the  bones  were 
merely  bundled  together,  as  though  wrapped  in  blankets  and 
buried  so — legs,  arms,  skull,  etc.,  in  a  small  package. 

No  stone  relics  were  discovered  other  than  one  very  finely 
made  bicave  stone,  reddish  in  color.  There  was  a  paucity  of 
flint  chips,  pottery  sherds  and  shell,  throughout  all  the  ardu- 
ous careful  work  of  the  exploring  party. 

Soundings  in  other  parts  of  the  mound,  by  well  augurs, 
yielded  evidences  of  other  burials,  bits  of  shell,  etc. 

Throughout  the  entire  structure,  it  seemed,  no  two  shov- 
elsfull  of  earth  were  of  the  same  composition.  It  was  heavy, 
gummy  soil,  mixed  in  places  with  what  seemed  to  be  iron 
oxide  or  paint.  A  ball  of  this  clay  dries  as  hard  as  adobe, 
and  it  could  have  been  used  in  the  making  of  pottery — so  it 
seemed  to  us. 

The  evident  care,  the  intelligence,  the  accuracy  dem- 
onstrated in  the  making  of  Rattlesnake  Mound  command  the 
respect  of  those  who  know.  The  peculiar  composition  of  soils 
shows  that  unusual  significance  was  attached  by  the  builders 
to  this  sacred  mound.  The  "bunch"  burials  almost  compel 
us  to  think  that  the  individuals  were  brought  from  afar  to 
their  final  resting  place  at  or  near  their  Mecca — or  was  it 
merely  that  they  were  brought  to  their  home-land,  to  be 
"forever"  among  their  own  kind? 


40  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

JOHN  B.  ROLLE  VILLAGE  SITE- 
ST.  CLAIR  COUNTY 


VILLAGE  SITES  of  the  prehistoric  Red  Men  are  not 
marked  by  crumbling  walls,  gaping  well  and  cistern 
holes,  nor  even  indentions  left  by  cellars.  Well  defined 
village  sites,  however,  do  exist,  and  patient  search  reveals, 
usually,  much  interesting  material. 

Village  sites  vary  in  surroundings  and  other  character- 
istics as  do  villages  and  towns  of  today. 

The  explorations  in  the  Cahokia  group  indicate  that  be- 
sides the  great  mounds,  evidences  of  village  sites  are  found 
to  run  almost  continuously  from  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  the  great  Cahokia  group,  southwest,  south,  west,  northwest 
and  north  for  a  distance  of  six  miles  and  more.  Nearly  all 
the  low  ridges  in  this  radius,  even  today,  will  yield  evidences 
of  ancient  occupancy.  The  low  places  indicate  clearly  the 
old  canoe  paths  that  coursed  the  American  Bottoms,  furnish- 
ing, no  doubt,  navigable  exits  to  the  Mississippi,  from  the 
lakes  that  dotted  the  territory,  as  well  as  means  of  com- 
munication between  the  various  village  groups. 

There  are  several  exceptionally  beautiful  sites  that  really 
should  be  thoroughly  explored  and  described,  but  in  this 
work  description  will  not  be  attempted. 

On  the  farm  of  Mr.  John  B.  Rolle,  five  miles  due  east 
of  East  St.  Louis,  in  the  Bottoms,  is  an  ideal  site.  Due  north, 
about  three  miles,  stands  the  Great  Mound  of  Cahokia,  over- 
lording the  entire  district.  Mr.  Rolle,  being  of  a  studious 
nature,  is  keenly  interested  in  archaeology,  and  is  a  close 
and  careful  observer.  He  has  found  much  interesting  mater- 
ial on  this  site,  which  is  characteristic  of  the  Cahokia  culture. 

The  site  lies  north  of  his  house  about  two  hundred  yards, 
on  what  was  once  the  bank  of  a  bayou  or  lake.  Directly 
northeast  lie  two  very  low  mounds,  now  nearly  plowed  down, 
which  have  been  casually  examined,  and  have  yielded  pot- 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  41 

tery,  several  "notched  hoes,"  finely  chipped  projectile  points, 
etc.  The  digging  was  done  by  the  Guoy  Bros,  who  own  land 
adjoining  Mr.  Rolle's  place.  They  were  not  experienced  in 
such  work  and  so  were  unable  to  save  any  of  the  pottery,  but 
the  sherds  found  at  this  site,  as  well  as  the  chipped  flint 
pieces,  invariably  are  fine,  indicating  workmanship  of  super- 
ior character.  The  situation  is  similar  to  that  found  at  Mr. 
Offermann's  farm  in  Monroe  County,  but  no  stone  was  used 
in  the  low  mounds  which  the  Guoy  Bros,  explored. 

Mr.  Rolle  has  dug  "prospect  holes"  at  various  points  in 
the  site,  and  of  late  years  he  has  cultivated  the  land  unusually 
deep,  which  is  necessary  for  the  successful  raising  of  horse- 
radish, to  which  the  soil  hereabouts  is  peculiarly  adapted. 
The  camp  debris  seems  to  be  almost  three  feet  deep  quite 
generally  over  the  site.  As  this  site  is  not  subject  to  over- 
flow, and  as  cultivation  wears  the  land  away  into  the  lower 
ancient  lake  or  bayou  bed,  the  thickness  of  the  soil  contain- 
ing broken  pottery,  flint  chips,  grinding  stones,  hammer  stones, 
paint  rock,  hematite  and  galena,  is  evidence  enough  that  it 
was  a  town  or  village  site  for  ages. 


EFFIGY  POTTERY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  BOTTOMS 

The  above  effigy  pottery  from  and  near  the  Offermann  farm  is  typical  of 
effigy  pottery  throughout  the  Bottoms.  One  finds  it  described  and  illustrated 
in  Smithsonian  reports;  also  in  Professor  Moorehead's  report  on  his  work  in 
the  Cahokia  Mound  group.  The  vessel  at  the  right  is  an  animal  effigy,  the. 
blunt  nose,  protruding  eyes,  the  elfish  cars  reminding  one  strongly  of  a  fox 
or  an  English  fairy  or  elf.  The  bowl  is  of  red  material,  hard  surface,  about 
three  inches  tall  and  four  and  a  half  inches  in  diameter.  It  was  found  by  Mr. 
Antone  Fanaia,  living  a  few  miles  up  the  Bottom  toward  Valmeyer.  The  left 
hand  vessel  represents  a  Gulf  shell  cut  to  make  it  into  a  useful  vessel  and 
came  from  the  Offermann  mound. 


12  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

SITE  AT  FRENCH  VILLAGE 
ST.  CLAIR  COUNTY 


THE  AMERICAN  BOTTOMS  is  now,  and,  without  doubt, 
was  in  very  ancient  times,  wonderfully  rich  in  food. 
It  was  dotted  with  lakes,  bayous  and  creeks  with  their 
slow-moving  current,  which  furnished  an  abundance  of  fish, 
turtle,  frogs,  etc.,  and  literally  millions  of  wild  waterfowl. 
The  broad,  low  ridges  furnished  ideal  village  and  field  sites, 
as  well  as  range  for  deer,  bear,  etc.,  and  the  smaller  food  ani- 
mals. They  were  safe  from  the  ordinary  high  waters  of  the 
great  river,  but  occasionally,  in  our  own  history,  floods  have 
risen  and  covered  all  but  the  very  highest  ridges  and  those 
places  that  were  built  up  by  the  mound  builders  which  would 
furnish  refuges  for  entire  tribes  at  such  times. 

These  prehistoric  people  had  boats,  it  is  believed,  with 
which  their  war  and  hunting  parties  made  long  journeys  up 
and  down  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries;  also  to  hunt 
and  fish  among  the  lakes  and  streams  of  the  Bottoms. 

The  bluffs  northeast,  east  and  southeast  of  East  St.  Louis 
are  merely  high  hills,  some  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above 
the  Bottoms.  We'll  say  at  every  "pass"  through  the  bluffs, 
that  is  where  a  creek  breaks  through  on  its  way  to  the  river, 
can  be  found  evidences  of  prehistoric  Indian  occupancy. 

At  old  French  Village,  six  miles  east  of  East  St.  Louis, 
two  miles  southeast  of  Mr.  Rolle's  village  site,  five  miles 
south-southeast  of  old  Cahokia,  is  a  typical  site.  The  Schoen- 
berg  Creek  breaks  through  the  bluffs  at  this  point,  and  a 
broad,  rich  bottom  land  extends  several  miles  back  into  the 
broken  lands  or  rolling  bluffs  along  this  creek.  At  the  mouth 
of  the  creek  is  a  beautiful  pyramidal  mound,  which  rises  to 
the  height  of  a  bench  immediately  south  of  it. 

The  lands  of  the  Bottoms  near  the  bluffs  at  this  point  are 
well  above  any  known  high  water,  and  are  exceedingly  pro- 
ductive, and  show  abundant  evidence  of  Indian  occupancy. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  43 

For  probably  a  hundred  years  the  major  portion  of  this 
beautiful  site  has  been  owned  by  the  Boul  family.  Mr.  Nich- 
olas Boul,  who  lived  on  it  until  his  death  some  years  ago, 
protected  it  from  relic  hunters,  who  have  for  fifty  years  ex- 
plored the  Bottoms  and  bluffs.  His  grandson,  Mr.  Ben 
Woesthaus,  a  young  man  keenly  interested  in  the  study  of 
archaeology,  has  during  the  past  year,  carried  on  very  inter- 
esting work  in  pursuance  of  his  desire  to  learn  the  who,  what 
and  when  of  the  ancient  inhabitants. 

In  the  great  field  west  of  his  parents'  home,  he  finds 
plots  literally  filled  with  flint  spawls,  pottery  sherds,  hammer 
stones,  etc.,  and  on  the  bench,  above  the  house,  and  on  the 
crown  of  the  bluffs  are  found  ideal  burial  sites. 

Here  is  found  no  limestone  in  connection  with  the  burials. 
No  evidences  of  white  man's  manufacture  has  been  unearthed. 
The  nature  of  the  soil  seems  peculiarly  adapted  for  the  pre- 
servation of  the  bones,  shell  and  pottery  of  the  Indians. 

Mr.  Woesthaus  has  unearthed  many  burials,  one  of 
which  yielded  an  unusually  great  wealth  of  interesting  relics. 
This  burial  contained  so  much  of  what  seems  to  be  typical  of 
this  site,  we  will  take  Mr.  Woesthaus'  own  notes,  and  con- 
sider this  description  a  fair  one  for  the  entire  group.  Believ- 
ing that  what  he  has  written  as  an  introduction  to  his  records 
is  interesting,  we  will  reprint  that  also : 

"I  cannot  exactly  tell  why,  but  objects  that  are  very  old, 
carrying  their  suggestions  of  ages,  seem  to  possess  an  unusual 
attraction  for  me.  Due  to  the  fact  that  we  now  live  near 
the  Cahokia  Mounds  has  probably  made  me  most  interested 
in  archaeology.  Questing  into  the  dim,  forgotten  past  for 
the  history  of  a  vanished  people  has  so  caught  my  interest 
that  most  of  my  leisure  time  is  spent  in  gathering  various  bits 
of  information  and  the  relics  dealing  with  the  lives  and  cus- 
toms of  these  people. 

"What  a  wonderful  culture  and  civilization  this  race 
must  have  had  to  gain  the  knowledge  of  the  ceramic  arts  and 
stone  working  that  they  exhibited ;  considering  the  fact  that 
they  had  no  potter's  wheel,  no  iron  or  steel  for  their  working 
tools.  Then  the  erection  of  the  vast  and  imposing  mounds, 
eternal  monuments  to  a  cultured  race  whose  history  is  un- 


1  1  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

known  to  man,  but  which  must  have  taken  hundreds  of  years 
to  build.  The  famous  Cahokia  or  Monks'  Mound  is  1098  by 
725  feet  at  base  and  is  100  feet  high,  covering  seventeen  acres, 
two  roods  and  three  perches  of  ground,  and  is  larger  than 
the  pyramid  of  Cheops,  and  also  much  larger  than  the  pyra- 
mids erected  by  the  Mayas  and  Aztecs  in  Mexico.  It  must 
have  taken  not  only  years  of  time  but  thousands  of  men  to 
heap  up  a  pile  of  earth  this  size,  with  many  other  stupendous 
mounds  around  it.  The  antiquity  of  these  mounds  and  the 
evidence  that  they  are  the  work  of  man  and  not  accidental 
freaks  of  nature  has  been  proven  so  often  that  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  go  into  detail. 

"But  as  to  the  antiquity  of  man  in  America,  there  are 
some  conflicting  theories.  Prof.  Warren  K.  Moorehead  says 
that  in  Delaware  Valley  there  is  or  was  evidence  that  it  had 
been  inhabited  as  far  back  as  three  or  four  thousand  years. 
In  the  southern  part  of  the  United  States,  in  Louisiana,  there 
was  unearthed  in  1866  a  small  piece  of  rush  matting  in  a 
salt  bed  fourteen  feet  below  the  surface  and  two  feet  below 
the  tusks  and  remains  of  a  prehistoric  elephant  or  mastodon. 
This  seems  to  show  that  man  inhabited  this  region  before  or 
at  the  time  of  the  mastodon. 

"In  the  west  there  are  the  Mesa  Verde  ruins  and  other 
cliff  dwellings  whose  origin  or  occupancy  was  unknown  to 
the  Indians  when  the  Spaniards  invaded  Mexico  and  took 
Montezuma  prisoner.  In  the  Central  West  we  have  the 
mighty  Cahokia  Mounds,  and  in  Mexico,  Yucatan,  Chili  and 
other  countries  in  South  America  we  have  the  records  of 
Aztec,  Toltec,  Maya  and  Inca  ruins,  and  inscriptions,  some 
accounting  for  more  than  two  thousand  years.  And  these 
people  found  others  living  there  when  they  invaded  and  occu- 
pied their  lands.  So  that  we  feel  it  safe  to  assume  that  this 
country  has  prehistoric  men  that  are  as  old  or  almost  as  old 
as  those  in  Europe. 

"Many  of  the  burials  that  I  have  unearthed  are  on  a  high 
ridge  on  the  south  side  of  our  home,  which  is  situated  on  the 
bluffs  between  Edgemont  and  French  Village.  This  ridge  had 
been  dug  into  some  twenty  years  ago  by  a  collector  who  lived 
in  French  Village,  and  the  first  burials  I  unearthed  were  those 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  45 

he  had  found.  So  no  record  has  been  kept  of  them.  Many 
were  very  interesting,  but  I  submit  No.  34  as  being  particu- 
larly fine,  containing  as  it  did  so  many  relics  typical  of  the 
relics  found  in  the  other  burials,  the  only  difference  being  in 
the  unusual  quantity  found. 


"June  16,  1927 — This  skeleton  had  two  women  buried 
above  him,  who  may  or  may  not  have  been  his  wives.  I 
found  his  feet  while  digging  on  skeleton  No.  31,  and  so  shall 
describe  from  feet  to  head.  All  along  his  legs,  and  in  fact  his 
whole  body  up  to  his  neck,  was  covered  with  small  seashell 
beads.  They  were  near  the  bones  and  three  inches  or  so 
farther  away,  on  the  calves  of  his  legs.  There  was  a  whole 
pile  of  them  in  the  pelvic  bones,  in  between  the  ribs  and  the 
spinal  structure.  His  clothes  must  have  been  fairly  covered 
with  them.  I  grew  tired  of  hunting  them  out  and  picking 
them  up.  There  was  easily  over  a  thousand  of  them.  I  still 
have  about  seven  hundred  and  have  given  various  numbers 
away.  This  Indian  was  "good"  from  the  neck  up,  no  doubt 
about  it.  Under  the  jawbone  or  chin  was  a  long  shell  about 
seven  inches  in  length  with  three  holes  drilled  through  it. 
Around  the  neck  was  a  number  of  large  perfect  beads,  the 
finest  I  have  seen  to  date.  They  are  well  preserved  and  are 
about  one-half  to  three-fourths  of  an  inch  thick  and  about 
the  circumference  of  a  quarter.  Directly  under  his  jaw  were 
six  of  these  lying  close  together,  just  the  way  they  were  when 
he  was  buried,  several  hundred  years  ago.  There  were  a 
few  beads  near  his  right  shoulder  on  the  right  side.  But  the 
left  side  had  most  of  the  things.  There  were  five  bear  tusks 
with  holes  drilled  through  them,  one  hole  had  been  broken 
through  and  a  groove  was  cut  around  the  tooth  to  secure  it. 
On  the  left  side  of  his  head  was  an  unusual  white  sandstone 
tool,  seven  and  a  half  inches  in  length,  about  half  an  inch  in 
thickness.  There  is  a  deep  groove  on  one  side  near  the  top 
and  running  all  the  way  across.  On  top  is  a  similar  groove, 
except  that  it  is  shallow  in  the  center  and  deep  at  the  ends. 
On  the  other  side  is  a  large  shallow  depression  about  three 
and  a  half  by  one  and  a  half  inches.  It  seems  to  have  been 
used  to  polish  or  smoothen  the  beads,  as  the  material  of  the 
tool  acts  as  an  abrasive.  There  was  a  string  of  beads  around 
this  tool,  beads  about  as  large  as  a  dime,  three  times  as  thick 
and  perforated  in  the  center. 

"Still  further  to  the  left  were  two  large  mussel  shells, 
under  which  was  a  large  hollow  tusk  or  some  other  bone  or 


1<;  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

material  that  had  been  carved.  It  had  already  been  broken 
by  pressure  of  the  ground,  some  of  the  parts  are  missing.  I 
saved  both  ends  and  parts  of  the  middle.  It  would  seem,  if 
whole,  to  have  been  in  the  form  of  a  crescent  about  three  or 
four  inches  in  length  and  tapering  to  a  point  at  each  end. 
Farther  back  and  nearer  the  head  were  several  more  shells, 
some  sea  shells  and  some  fresh  water  mussels.  Some  were 
cut  and  one  was  similar  to  the  shell  found  under  the  jaw, 
having  the  holes  bored  through  it  . 

"In  some  of  these  shells  were  rows  of  beads  similar  to 
the  ones  found  around  the  stone  tool.  Some  of  them  were  in 
rows  just  as  they  had  been  strung.  Near  some  of  the  shells 
was  some  red  paint  rock  and  under  the  head  of  the  Indian 
was  a  shell  about  three  inches  wide.  Near  the  skull  and  un- 
der a  shell  was  a  small  piece  of  galena. 

'The  skeleton  faced  slightly  south  of  west,  and  had  two 
burials  on  top  of  him,  seemingly  made  at  the  same  time,  as 
there  was  no  appreciable  layer  of  earth  separating  them. 
Also  there  was  a  burial  on  the  right  side  of  No.  34,  with  which 
was  found  a  roughly-chipped  white  flint  spud,  a  small  pot 
about  three  inches  in  diameter,  part  of  a  flint  spade  and  sev- 
eral good  sized  flint  spawls.  In  the  one  grave  which  con- 
tained the  four  skeletons,  there  were  found  the  following 
items : 

Small  seashell  beads  (Marginelli)   980 

Bone  and  shell  beads,  size  of  dime 110 

Large  beads  about  neck 28 

Drilled  bear  tusks  6 

Chunk  of  galena  1 

Chunk  of  red  paint  rock  1 

Stone  tool,  white  sandstone  1 

Flint  spud 1 

Broken  part  of  flint  spade  1 

Miscellaneous  shells,  three  bored 12 

A  pot,  three  inches  in  diameter 1 

"This,  as  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  is  one  of  the  best  finds 
made  around  East  St.  Louis  for  some  years,  and  I  am  more 
than  thankful  that  I  happened  to  be  the  lucky  one  to  find  it." 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  47 

"DICKSON'S  MOUND  BUILDERS/'  NEAR 
LEWISTON,  FULTON  COUNTY 


DR.  DON  F.  DICKSON,  who  lives  with  his  father  on  their 
farm  about  six  miles  southwest  of  Lewiston,  Fulton 
County,  has  performed  a  work  that  is  without  doubt  of  greater 
value  to  students  of  American  archaeology  than  any  one  bit 
of  work  done,  anywhere,  so  far.  The  idea  is  original  with 
him  and  will  stand  as  a  monument  to  his  thoughtful,  careful, 
painstaking  labor  and  intelligent  interest. 

His  father's  house  is  situated  near  the  top  of  a  high  hill, 
overlooking  the  bottomland  at  the  conjunction  of  the  Spoon 
River  with  the  Illinois  River.  About  twenty-five  yards  away 
from  the  house  was  situated  a  semi-lunar  shaped  Indian 
mound  of  large  proportions.  The  situation  is  a  beautiful  one, 
overlooking  several  fine  mounds  in  the  near  bottomland,  which 
is  ideal  for  field  and  village  sites.  The  proximity  of  the 
mound  to  the  dwelling  made  it  possible  for  Dr.  Dickson  to 
do  what  he  has  done. 

To  satisfy  a  yearning  to  know  more ;  to  actually  see  and 
study  the  relics,  the  postures,  the  burial  methods  of  these  mys- 
terious, forgotten  peoples;  to  meditate,  to  ponder  the  under- 
lying reason  prompting  them,  Dr.  Dickson  went  to  work. 

Much  of  the  upper  portion  of  the  mound  had  been  graded 
down  by  his  father  in  previous  years,  who  used  the  dirt  in 
leveling  off  and  enlarging  his  house  yard,  thereby  removing 
literally  hundreds  of  skeletons. 

The  young  man  had  carefully  uncovered,  at  the  time  of 
the  writer's  visit,  a  plot  approximately  forty  feet  square,  and 
a  depth  of  from  three  to  seven  feet.  He  has  literally  handled 
carloads  of  dirt  with  a  teaspoon — uncovering  each  skeleton 
with  a  knife  blade,  his  breath  and  a  brush.  Each  bone  was 
left  undisturbed,  each  pot,  each  relic  was  replaced  in  as  near 
its  exact  original  position  as  possible. 

He  has  thus  exposed  almost  a  panoramic  view  of  the 
burials    of   a    numerous    tribe,    occurring    no    doubt    during 


48  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

decades  of  time.  They  lie,  invariably,  on  their  backs,  flexed, 
following  no  direction  of  compass ;  at  varying  depths.  While 
the  clay  soil  has  preserved  wonderfully  the  bones  and  pot- 
tery, no  vestige  or  imprint  of  featherwork,  leather,  fabric  or 
basketry  remains.  The  tribal  instinct  of  being  together  in 
life  was  followed  by  those  who  interred  their  departed — in  a 
compact  group. 

As  Dr.  Dickson  has  them  exposed,  they  seem  more  than 
merely  the  cast-off  frames  of  human  beings.  They  seem  to 
us  to  actually  live  in  their  expressive  attitudes.  Which  was 
chief  in  his  time?  Which  an  artificer?  Which  a  great  war- 
rior? Which  was  the  great  medicine  man?  That  is  impos- 
sible to  say.  But  two  loving  couples  are  there.  Startlingly 
real  is  their  love,  even  today,  hundreds,  yea,  perhaps  thou- 
sands of  years,  after  some  tragedy  overtook  them. 

These  two  family  groups  have  been  so  carefully  uncov- 
ered that  nothing  has  been  moved,  and  to  gaze  on  them  causes 
anyone  to  wonder  and  almost  weep  at  their  terribly  graphic 
attitudes  of  deathless  desire  to  be  together.  Though  forever 
silent,  they  seem  to  speak  of  a  faith,  a  hope,  a  love  far  be- 
yond one's  ordinary  conception  of  the  exalted  status  of  mere 
savages'  love.  They  almost  tell  us  that  their  faith  in  Life  was 
that  it  continued,  somehow,  somewhere,  but  sure. 

One  of  these  groups  ("1,"  pp.  49,  50)  is  that  of  a  stalwart 
man,  on  the  right.  The  woman  is  on  the  left,  her  face  toward 
Him ;  and  their  Babe,  which  lies  between  them,  at  her  breast. 
On  the  Babe's  breast,  as  though  suspended  from  its  little  neck, 
is  a  very  small  unio  Gulf  shell.  Around  the  Woman's 
wrists  are  strands  of  wampum-shaped  beads,  made  of  sea- 
shell.  The  man's  frame  is  without  ornament.  A  generous- 
sized  food  bowl  lies  at  her  side.  The  Three — the  Family — 
are  together — forever. 

At  a  level,  about  four  feet  lower  than  this,  lies  another 
family  group.  A  man  on  the  left,  with  his  right  leg  bent  at 
the  knee.  On  his  left  lies  the  Woman,  with  her  face  towards 
the  Man ;  and  enclosed  in  her  still  loving,  protecting  mother's 
arm,  lies  their  child,  possibly  eight  years  old  or  so.  At  her 
waist  is  their  second  child,  lying  on  his  or  her  right  side, 
with  its  legs  drawn  up  as  a  child  does  when  asleep.     This 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


49 


This  /view  of  Dickson's  Mound  Builders  Tomb  shows  clearly  the  fact 
that  the  individuals  buried  here  were  buried  at  different  times;  no  atten- 
tion being  paid  to  direction  of  compass;  each  at  a  different  level,  except 
the  family  groups  No.  1  and  No.  2.  No.  3  is  the  group — -four  deep — lying 
very  closely  together,  seeming  to  indicate  either  a  group  burial  or  the  in- 
terments coming  at  such  intervals  that  disintegration  of  flesh  was  com- 
pleted in  the  lower  burials  at  the  time  of  the  superimposed  interments. 


50 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


A  much  better  view  of  the  "Tomb,"  showing  No.  1,  the  family  group 
with  the  Woman  on  the  left,  with  her  food  bowl  at  her  side,  and  shell 
beads  on  her  wrist,  the  Man  on  the  right,  with  their  Babe  and  its  pendant 
Gulf  unio  shell,  lying  between  them.  No.  2  is  clearly  shown  also,  with  the 
Woman  on  the  right,  food  bowls  at  her  head  and  hips,  her  arm  about  a 
young  child,  another  older  child  lying  on  its  side  at  her  waist.  The  Man  lies 
on  the  left.  No.  3  shows  the  "conglomerate"  group,  which  can  be  seen 
through  the  glass  plates  Dr.  Dickson  has  placed  under  the  upper  burial. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


51 


child  is  older,  probably  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age.  When 
this  devoted  family,  either  through  influence  of  some  weird, 
savage  religious  ecstasy  or  through  ordinary  calamity,  started 
on  their  great  journey  to  the  mysterious  Beyond,  they,  by 
their  deathless  postures  tell  us  of  their  paramount  desire  to 
be — together.  Food  bowls  lie  at  the  Woman's  head  on  the 
left,  another  at  her  waist.     (See  "2,7  pp.  49,  50.) 

The  camera  is  a  wonderful  instrument,  but  mechanical 
contrivances  can  not  bring  out  the  tremendous  realities  of  this 
great  work.  At  "3,"  pp.  49,  50,  is  an  almost  puzzling  group 
of  individuals.  Each  one  lies  on  its  back,  in  attitudes  of  com- 
plete  rest.  They  lie  very  closely  together,  not  side  by  side, 
but  one  slightly  above  the  other,  as  though  interred  at  such 
widely  different  times  that  complete  disintegration  of  the 
flesh   had  occurred  in  the   lower  burials,  thus  allowing  the 


Fine  examples  of  the  pottery  found  in  Dickson's  Mound.  The  large 
vessel  at  the  left  has  a  squash  or  melon  design.  The  one  at  the  right  is  a 
rare  form  of  vessel  found  only  in  prehistoric  burials  of  the  Red  Men.  The 
smaller  vessels  are  perfect,  unornamented  and  of  thin  walls.  The  center 
forefront  is  called  a  potter's  trowel  by  various  collectors  and  authorities. 


52 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


placement  of  the  superimposed  individuals.  The  three  lower 
skeletons  lie  in  one  direction,  the  upper  one  lies  across  the 
others.  Dr.  Dickson,  in  order  to  show  this  group,  has  placed 
glass  plates  beneath  the  top  burial,  and  to  do  this  he  was  com- 
pelled to  move  the  body  from  elbows  to  knees.  However,  it 
has  been  accurately  reassembled,  and  one  can  see  the  four 
"layers"  distinctly. 

Dr.  Dickson  has  built  a  permanent  vitrified  clay  tile 
building  over  the  exhibit,  and  is  continuing  his  work  of  un- 
folding to  the  view  of  students  additional  "inhabitants"  of 
this  apparently  great  tribe. 

One  individual  he  terms  the  "Arrowmaker"  because  of 


Top  row — fine  steatite  Mound  Builders'  platform  pipe;  upper  jaws 
and  teeth  cut  from  skulls.  Teeth  are  perfect  and  are  highly  suggestive  of 
"false  teeth."  Middle  row — >two  Mound  Builders'  platform  pipes.  Lower 
front  is  a  most  unique  relic — a  tiny  dagger  and  sheath,  cut  from  the  teeth 
of  a  grizzly  bear.  How  the  scabbard  was  hollowed  out  to  receive  the  beau- 
tifully shaped  dagger  of  the  hard  bear  tooth,  with  primitive  stone  tools,  is 
indeed  a  puzzle. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  53 

the  unusual  number  of  flint  arrow  points  and  bone  chipping 
tools  found  lying  with  it. 

Another  individual  has  been  uncovered  who  was  no 
doubt  laid  away  in  the  full  vigor  of  warriorhood.  No  finely- 
ornamented  blanket,  no  gorgeous  featherwork,  none  of  the 
choice  tidbits  of  basketed  food,  nothing  of  the  carefully  en- 
graved and  painted  ax-handle  or  bow,  with  its  accompany- 
ing quiver,  were  found.  Father  Time  has  claimed  all  of 
those  untold  hundreds  of  years  agone.  But  lying  at  his  waist 
line,  embedded  in  its  protecting  sheath  of  clay,  lies  a  very 
beautiful  polished  green  granite  celt.  This  seems  to  us  to 
clearly  show  that  the  celts  were  ungrooved  axes,  and  were 
without  doubt  firmly  bound  to  handles  by  rawhide,  which 
dries  and  shrinks  to  almost  metallic  firmness. 

So  much  has  been  said,  so  much  has  been  written,  so 
much  more  could  and  will  be  written  about  Dr.  Dickson's 
work  by  those  better  qualified  to  do  so  than  the  writer,  that 
it  seems  to  us  futile  to  attempt  a  fuller  description  here. 


DICKSON'S  Mound  Builders  seem  to  us  to  show  distinct 
relations  to  the  Cahokia  people.  Their  arrow  points  are 
predominatingly  triangular  in  form,  well  made,  of  material 
from  widely  separated  sources.  They  used  no  stone  in  their 
burials,  but  the  pottery,  the  attitudes  of  the  bodies  in  their 
extended,  restful  positions,  are  very  similar  to  those  of  the 
people  who  inhabited  the  American  Bottoms,  and  who  buiit 
the  great  mounds  there. 

Indications  of  social  diseases  are  not  found  in  the  bones 
of  Dickson's  Mound  Builders,  nor  are  they  found  in  the  bones 
of  other  ancient  pre-Columbian  peoples. 

Here  no  man  is  surrounded  by  female  skeletons.  The 
family  groups  are  pure — one  man,  one  woman  and  their  off- 
spring. 

Diseased  bones  are  occasionally  found,  but  seem  clearly 
to  be  results  of  infections  from  wounds,  or  other  malforma- 
tions. 


54 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


These  people  were  so  intensely  tribal  in  their  lives  that 
they  have  shown  their  desire  to  remain  so  in  death. 

Their  relics  indicate  various  degrees  of  culture.  In  the 
upper  or  later  portion  of  Dickson's  mound  was  found  pottery 
of  very  fine  workmanship  and  texture,  superior  ornamenta- 
tion and  shapes.  The  lower  or  earlier  levels  contain  un- 
marked pottery,  though  of  fine  shape  and  finish. 

The  flint  chippings  show  a  fine  degree  of  craftsmanship. 
The  material  indicates  a  wide  range,  though  the  pure  white 
flint  was  generally  used. 


♦fitful 


ifr*n*t«ii«'W»» 


r»*Tf*t*tirm»t»*» 


tr»*tT'?m  m  ?r?r*iu 


nil 


;ii 


?» <» 


This  picture  shows  a  collection  of  arrowheads,  implements,  vessels  and 
r.nimal  bones  found  in  Dickson's  Mound.  The  arrowheads  are  typical  of 
the  Cahokia  group  culture,  as  indeed  are  the  vessels.  The  bones  are  from 
buffalo,  elk,  deer,  antelope,  wild-cat,  wolf,  etc.  The  shells  are  from  the 
sea  and  from  the  nearby  rivers.  Flint  knife  blades,  bone  awls,  perforated 
discoidal  beads  are  shown.  The  large  flints,  lower  right,  are  spades,  not  so 
fine  as  are  found  at  the  Cahokia  grop. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


55 


Some  implements  were  found,  large  and  strong,  made  of 
the  radius  of  deer,  also  very  fine,  needle-like  bone  implements 
were  present  which  may  have  been  used  in  the  making  of 
clothing,  etc.,  or  possibly  in  tattooing. 

The  bones  of  the  deer,  grizzly  and  smaller  bear,  elk,  ante- 
lope, buffalo,  turtle,  fish,  fowl,  wild  cat  and  wolf  are  found. 

A  sacrum  with  a  perfect  Cahokia  Mound  arrowhead, 
deeply  imbedded  in  it,  was  an  interesting  discovery. 

These  people  procured  shells  from  the  seacoast,  hundreds 
of  miles  distant,  to  make  their  beads  and  which  they  also 
used  in  their  entirety  as  ornaments  or  sacred  vessels. 

One  of  the  finest  pieces  of  workmanship  was  found  that 
we  have  ever  seen.  It  is  made  from  the  teeth  of  a  grizzly 
bear.  One  portion  of  the  tooth  is  hollowed  out,  at  a  cost  of 
who  knows  how  much  painstaking  labor,  to  receive  a  little 
dagger  which  has  been  cut  from  a  grizzly  tooth  of  the  same 
size.  This  will  puzzle  the  craftsmen  of  today  with  their 
chilled  steel  drills  and  engravers'  tools.  How  it  was  accom- 
plished with  the  stone  tools  of  those  ancient  people  will  re- 
main a  mystery. 


The  effigy  pot  came  from  Hickman  County,  Ky.,  and  like  effigies 
have  been  found  in  the  American  Bottoms.  The  small  concretions  came 
from  the  base  line  of  a  mound  in  the  Cahokia  group;  the  larger  concre- 
tions came  from  outside  of  stone  cist  near  Roots.     (See  text,  page  31.) 


56  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

THE  ORIGINAL  AMERICANS 

T  is  not  the  endeavor  of  the  writer  to  settle  the  status  of 
the  Mound  Builders.     The  writing  of  this  little  book,  as 
well  as  the  printing  of  it,  was  done  merely  as  the  diversion 
of  one  interested  in  the  study  of  the  ancient  Indians  who  so 
completely  occupied  our  lands  hereabouts  that  their  relics  are 
evident  on  almost  every  farm,  on  every  river  or  creek  bank. 

In  answering  our  craving  for  knowledge,  we  are  led 
afield,  into  the  outdoors,  and  as  a  healthful  recreation  it  has 
repaid  all  our  efforts. 

In  reading  the  expressions  of  those  who  have  made  the 
study  of  our  Original  Americans  a  life  work,  our  respect  for 
the  American  Indian  has  been  increased.  We  find  that,  as 
a  race,  they  have  very  much  to  command  the  high  regard  of 
all  thoughtful  persons. 

The  white  man,  filled  with  the  greed  for  possession  nur- 
tured by  a  culture  so  different  from  that  of  the  American  Red 
man,  came,  conquered  and  almost  exterminated  the  Red  peo- 
ple, and  all  their  works,  crowding  them  into  our  waste  lands, 
where  they  have  lost  even  their  ancient  exalted  traditions. 
They  have  been  starved  and  neglected  and  abused  and 
robbed.  In  more  recent  years,  however,  steps  have  been 
taken,  books  have  been  written  and  educational  work  has 
been  done  so  that  the  remnants  of  the  great  Red  Nations  are 
adjusting  themselves  somewhat  to  the  ways  of  the  "world." 

VIRGINIA   INDIANS,   IN    1584,   WERE  CLEAN,   THRIFTY 

To  overcome  somewhat  the  prevailing  opinions  of  the 
helplessness  and  wretched  shiftlessness  of  the  Indians,  we 
herewith  reproduce  excerpts  from  some  writers  and  workers, 
some  old  and  some  modern.  To  our  minds  the  "broad  chasm" 
linking  the  sedentary,  industrious  Mound  Builders  to  the 
North  American  Indians  of  our  times,  dates  from  the  times  of 
the  destructive,  disturbing,  crushing  advent  of  the  white  con- 
querors. It  is  interesting  to  read  a  statement  from  the  ac- 
count of  "the  first  voyage  of  Raleigh  (1584)  to  Virginia." 
(Hakluyt's  Voyages.    London  Ed.,  1600,  Vol.  3,  p.  304) : 

"After  they  had  been  divers  times  aboard  our  ships,  my- 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  57 

self  with  seven  more  went  20  miles  into  the  river  that  runneth 
toward  the  city  of  Skicoak,  which  river  they  call  Ocam,  and 
the  evening  following  we  came  to  an  island  which  they  call 
Roanoke,  distant  from  the  harbor  which  we  entered  seven 
leagues;  and  at  the  north  end  thereof  was  a  village  of  nine 
houses  built  of  cedar  and  fortified  round  about  with  sharp 
trees  to  keep  out  their  enemies,  and  the  entrance  into  it  made 
like  a  turnpike  very  artificially.  When  we  came  toward  it, 
standing  near  to  the  water  side,  the  wife  of  Granganimo, 
the  chief's  brother,  came  running  out  to  meet  us  very  cheer- 
fully and  friendly.  *  *  *  When  we  came  into  the  outer 
room,  having  five  rooms  in  her  house,  she  caused  us  to  sit 
down  by  a  great  fire,  and  after  took  off  our  clothes  and 
washed  them  and  dried  them  again;  some  of  the  women 
plucked  off  our  stockings,  washed  them,  some  washed  our 
feet  in  warm  water,  and  she  herself  took  great  pains  to  see 
all  things  ordered  in  the  best  manner  she  could,  making  great 
haste  to  dress  some  meat  for  us  to  eat.  *  *  *  Their  ves- 
sels are  earthen  pots,  very  large,  white  and  sweet ;  their  dishes 
are  wooden  platters  of  sweet  timber. 


v,  ■    \ 

a 

> 

'  ;    .  ,A~ , ' 

'"     '\. 

% 

) 

HI^H 

M 

VESSELS   FROM   OKFEHMAMV    MOUND,    MONROE   COUNTY 

The  Mound  Builders  may  have  heen  materialists,  or  they  may  have  had  a 
realization  of  spiritual  thing's  heyonl  what  one  would  ordinarily  suppose.  The 
fact  that  food  bowls  and  "water  bottles"  are  found  with  burials  leads  one  to 
the  belief  that  material  food  and  drink  were  consigned  to  the  ground,  with 
the  individual,  with  a  knowledge  that  it  would  be  absorbed  into  its  original 
elements.  The  effigy  "bottle"  here  shown  on  the  right,  has  a  hole  in  the  side 
of  it  that  was  made  there,  it  being  the  supposition  of  some  observers  that  the 
hole  was  for  the  purpose  of  "killing"  the  pot,  or  to  more  quickly  release  the 
contents.  The  vessel  on  the  left  is  a  modified  form  of  the  "fox"  vessel  on  page 
37,  the  "tail"  or  handle  reminding  one  of  the  beaver. 


58  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

CHARACTER  QUALITIES  OF  KNOWN 

RED  MEN 


IT  gives  us  great  pleasure  to  introduce  in  this  work  a 
speech  delivered  by  Prof.  Warren  K.  Moorehead  at 
Circleville,  Ohio,  October  7,  1926,  beneath  "Logan  Elm,"  on 
the  Shawano  Indians  and  their  great  leaders.  The  occa- 
sion was  the  meeting  of  the  Ohio  History  Day  Association, 
and  in  spite  of  threatening  weather,  there  were  3,500  people 
in  attendance.  Prof.  Moorehead's  speech  is  instructive  in 
general,  although  local  in  application.  Prof.  Moorehead  has 
done  much  to  teach  us  our  duty  toward  the  remnants  of  the 
people  who  were  once  great  and  who  had  tamed  the  "wilder- 
ness" of  America  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands  of  years  before 
the  advent  of  the  white  man. 

Nor  do  we  here  desire  to  argue  the  question,  "Were  the 
Mound  Builders  the  Forebears  of  the  Indians  Whom  the 
White  Men  Found  on  This  Continent?"  We  feel  it  reasonable 
to  believe  that  the  systems  or  development  of  culture  of  the 
American  Indians,  like  the  systems  of  government  or  govern- 
ments by  different  dynasties  of  the  Old  World,  either  built  up 
or  tore  down  the  development  of  the  people  at  various  periods 
of  time. 

We  reprint  Prof.  Moorehead's  speech  because,  as  an 
eminent  authority  on  the  American  Indian,  his  utterances,  as 
reported  in  the  Circleville  (Ohio)  Watchman,  are  informative 
of  the  real  character  of  the  Red  Men  so  late  as  the  beginning 
of  the  last  century.  The  Red  Man,  driven  from  the  home  he 
and  his  forefathers  occupied  for  unnumbered  generations,  his 
well  ordered  system  of  habitation  destroyed,  no  doubt  quickly 
descended  to  the  status  of  homeless  wanderers  fighting  always 
for  the  right  to  live — for  a  home. 

Mr.  Chairman,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen : 

I  esteem  it  both  an  honor  and  a  privilege  to  appear  be- 
fore you  and  speak  briefly  upon  the  lives  of  two  great  char- 
acters, Logan  and  Tecumseh,  and  also  tell  you  a  little  con- 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  59 

cerning  the  Shawano  Indians,  commonly  called  the  Shawnees, 
whose  villages  were  in  this  part  of  our  State. 

We  are  assembled  on  a  very  historic  spot,  historic  not 
merely  because  the  cabin  of  the  earliest  settler,  Mr.  Boggs, 
a  man  who  has  been  fittingly  honored  by  the  first  monument 
here  erected,  but  also  because  this  was  the  center  from  which 
radiated  the  activities  of  these  same  Shawano  Indians. 

I  speak  informally.  Obviously  such  a  setting  demands 
a  flight  of  oratory.  Yet  the  great  oration,  the  one  delivered 
by  Logan  near  this  spot  in  the  fall  of  1774,  renders  any 
studied  effort  that  might  be  attempted  today  extremely  fu- 
tile and  commonplace.  Indeed,  since  it  is  quite  obvious  that 
no  public  speaker  called  upon  to  address  an  assemblage  gath- 
ered together  on  the  field  of  Gettysburg  would  do  more  than 
refer  in  the  highest  terms  to  Lincoln's  immortal  Gettysburg 
address,  so  today,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  it  would  be  almost  a 
sacrilege  to  attempt  any  flight  of  eloquence.  Moreover,  I 
am  no  orator,  but  on  the  contrary,  merely  a  student  of  Indian 
history. 

PAYS  TRIBUTE  TO  RED  RACE 

The  purpose  of  our  gathering  today  is  to  pay  tribute  to 
these  people  of  the  Red  race,  men,  women  and  children,  and 
distinguished  chiefs,  rather  than  to  accord  a  full  meed  of 
praise  to  our  White  pioneers.  This  is  said  in  no  disrespect.  I 
can  speak  frankly  upon  our  Indians'  wrongs,  for  the  reason 
that  my>  own  ancestor,  Captain  John  Mason,  in  the  State  of 
Connecticut,  in  the  Pequot  war  of  1687,  was  active  in  "pun- 
ishing the  heathen"  as  he  called  those  who  were  merely  fight- 
ing to  preserve  their  firesides  and  their  homes.  Our  country 
today,  having  possessed  itself  of  all  the  lands  owned  by  the 
Indians,  beginning  with  the  mouth  of  the  St.  John  River,  in 
New  Brunswick,  and  extending  to  the  Golden  Gate  of  Cali- 
fornia, can  well  afford  to  accord  our  original  inhabitants  their 
proper  place  on  the  page  of  American  history. 

The  Shawano  Indians  probably  had  their  origin  in  the 
South.  There  is  abundant  evidence  of  this.  Yet  I  shall  not 
weary  you  with  a  technical  dissertation  today,  and  neither 
shall  I  present  a  long  succession  of  dates  and  circumstances. 
To  those  who  are  inclined  to  serious  study,  I  would  commend 
the  excellent  publications  of  the  Ohio  State  Archaeological 
and  Historical  Society,  wherein  you  will  find  set  forth  in  ac- 
curate detail  most  of  the  occurrences  which  I  may  mention. 
Particularly,  would  I  recommend  that  you  read  the  observa- 
tions of  those  noble  missionaries,  Heckewelder  and  Zeisberger, 
who  present  for  your  consideration  a  correct  picture  of  the 


60  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

backwoods  or  frontier  element  responsible  for  most  of  the 
trouble  with  our  Indians.  These  two  self-sacrificing  and  up- 
right men  lived  with  the  Indians  for  many,  many  years,  spoke 
the  languages,  and  they  are  competent  witnesses  to  the  scenes, 
and  trustworthy  recorders  of  the  events  which  led  up  to  the 
cruelties  and  outrages  perpetrated  by  the  frontier  element 
upon  the  Shawano  Indians  of  the  Scioto  and  Miami  valleys. 

The  word  for  "town"  in  Shawano  is  Chillicothe  (Cha-la- 
ka-tha),  and  there  were  four  or  five  Shawano  towns,  one 
being  on  the  site  now  occupied  by  Portsmouth,  another  at 
Old  Town,  three  miles  north  of  Xenia,  a  third  at  Frankfort, 
Ross  County,  and  the  others  here  in  the  Pickaway  Plains. 
These  towns  at  no  time  possessed  more  than  400  to  500  fight- 
ing men. 

OHIO-ILLINOIS  INDIANS  WERE  BRAVE 

I  have  always  maintained  that,  considering  their  infer- 
iority in  numbers,  these  Indians  of  Ohio  were  the  bravest  and 
most  successful  warriors  in  the  entire  United  States.  Briefly 
summarized,  between  the  years  about  1750  and  1813,  they 
took  part  in  twenty-two  actions.  We  depend  on  our  own 
records,  the  Indians  having  no  written  history.  If  memory 
does  not  fail  me — of  these  twenty-two  actions,  we  ourselves 
admit  we  were  defeated  eleven  times ;  in  four  the  honors 
were  even,  and  seven  engagements  resulted  in  victories  for  the 
Whites.  Well  may  their  few  mixed-blood  descendants  now 
living  in  Kansas  or  Oklahoma  be  proud  of  these  Ohio  Red 
men.  Had  they  possessed  the  numbers  of  the  Iroquois,  it 
is  certain  that  the  White  settlements  north  of  the  Ohio  River 
would  have  been  delayed  for  a  half  century. 

We  haven't  time  to  go  into  detail,  but  I  will  briefly  men- 
tion some  of  the  actions  in  which  the  Shawano  were  present. 
Braddock's  defeat,  and  Grant's  action,  near  Pittsburg,  in 
which  nearly  1,000  English  and  Colonial  troops  were  killed, 
wounded,  or  captured,  and  the  rest  of  the  army  driven  back 
to  the  frontier  settlements.  St.  Clair's  defeat  in  the  western 
part  of  our  own  State,  1791,  where  nearly  1100  of  that  army 
were  destroyed.  They  were  in  evidence  against  Harrison  and 
Wayne  in  all  those  campaigns  leading  up  to  and  through  the 
war  of  1812. 

We  should  realize  the  great  disadvantages  of  these  peo- 
ple when  they  contended  with  the  superior  civilization  of  the 
Whites.  Most  of  the  guns  sold  them  by  the  traders  were 
poor;  they  had  no  granaries,  no  cattle  or  farm  produce  on 
which  to   draw.      Their  means  of  communication  were  ex- 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  61 

ceedingly  primitive,  and  they  must  of  necessity  have  traveled 
long  distances  from  village  to  village,  and  gathered  their  war- 
riors together  to  resist  invasion. 

UNSCRUPULOUS  TRADERS  CURSE  TO  INDIANS 

Our  early  records  are  filled  with  stories  of  Indian  attacks 
on  the  settlements  of  Kentucky,  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia. 
It  is  quite  true  that  the  Indians  were  cruel,  and  murdered 
men,  women  and  children.  It  is  equally  true  that  many 
of  our  frontier  element  deliberately  attacked  Indians  in  times 
of  peace,  regardless  of  tribal  affiliation.  This  has  extended 
down  to  modern  times,  and  in  the  last  Indian  fight — let  us 
hope  there  will  never  be  another — at  Wounded  Knee,  South 
Dakota,  December,  1890,  one  hundred  and  ninety-two  Sioux, 
mostly  women  and  children,  were  shot  down  by  our  troops. 

James  Smith,  who  wrote  our  best  narrative  of  captivity, 
was  with  the  Ohio  Indians  for  a  number  of  years  prior  to 
1762.  His  description  of  unscrupulous  traders  is  most  inter- 
esting. They  loaded  pack  horses  with  powder  and  ball, 
tomahawks,  scalping  knives,  and  whiskey,  and  did  a  lucrative 
business  with  the  Ohio  Indians. 

By  common  consent,  the  Ohio  River  was  the  boundary 
between  the  White  and  Indian  countries,  yet  men  of  the  type 
of  Wetzel  and  Greathouse  repeatedly  crossed  this  river  and 
killed  Indians.  Rewards  offered  by  our  officials  for  scalps 
resulted  in  many  surprise  attacks  on  the  Indian  encampments. 

An  educated,  New  England  woman,  Elizabeth  Dwight, 
went  by  stage  and  horseback  into  the  heart  of  the  Ohio  coun- 
try in  1819.  I  would  commend  her  volume  to  those  of  you 
who  wish  a  portrait  of  conditions  in  the  backwoods  at  that 
time.  It  is  published  by  the  Yale  press.  Coming  from  Con- 
necticut, where  there  was  no  frontier  element,  her  minute 
description  of  the  kind  of  men  she  met  in  the  cabins  and  prim- 
itive inns  does  not  tally  with  our  pre-conceived  notion  of  the 
so-called  noble  frontiersman. 

CHIEFS   LOGAN,   CORNSTALK   AND   TECUMSEH   WERE 

GREAT   MEN 

Let  us  consider  for  a  few  moments  the  lives  of  these  three 
men — Logan,  Cornstalk  and  Tecumseh. 

Logan's  Indian  name  was  Tah-gah-jute,  meaning  spying. 
He  was  born  at  Shamokin,  Pennsylvania,  about  1725,  was  a 
very  peaceable  man;  removed  to  the  Ohio  country  in  1770, 
and  was  seen  by  Heckewelder  in  1772.  He  lived  a  few  miles 
west  of  here  on  the  Scioto,  at  the  site  we  now  call  Westfall. 


G2  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

He  was  a  Cayuga  Chief,  and  thus  belonged  to  the  Iroquois 
Confederacy.  On  the  frontier  the  term, Mingo  was  employed 
to  designate  Iroquois  living  away  from' the  Mohawk  Valley. 
Logan  never  became  a  warrior  until  his  friends  and  relatives 
were  destroyed  by  the  Whites. 

Cornstalk,  the  celebrated  Shawano  Chief,  born  about 
1720,  probably  near  this  spot.  He  was  leader  of  the  Indians 
in  that  great  fight  at  Point  Pleasant,  October  19,  1774.  Three 
years  later  he  came  to  Point  Pleasant  to  warn  the  settlers  that 
his  tribe  might  be  forced  into  war,  and  to  beg  them  to  dis- 
continue raids  into  Ohio.  He  and  his  son  were  murdered 
while  upon  this  peaceful  mission  by  the  very  people  they 
sought  to  aid. 

Tecumseh,  properly  Tikamthi  or  Tecumtha,  according  to 
the  dialect  of  different  bands.  His  name  is  variously  inter- 
preted. His  mother  is  thought  to  have  belonged  to  the  Pan- 
ther clan.  "I  stand  in  path"  or  "I  oppose"  might  be  a  free 
translation  of  the  Shawano  meaning.  He  was  born  about 
1768,  six  miles  southwest  from  Springfield  on  Mad  River. 
His  father  was  killed  in  the  battle  of  Point  Pleasant.  His 
elder  brother  was  killed  at  his  side  in  Wayne's  victory,  1794. 
Tecumseh  was  one  of  three  brothers  born  at  the  same  time. 
This  in  itself  was  considered  by  the  Indians  miraculous,  since 
Indian  women  seldom  bore  twins,  and  triplets  were  unknown. 
His  other  brother  became  Tenskwa-tawa,  the  celebrated 
Prophet,  was  painted  by  George  Catlin  in  1832,  and  died  in 
1837  in  Kansas.     He  wTas  a  remarkable  personality. 

Tecumseh  himself  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  the  Thames, 
Canada,  October  5,  1813. 

One  might  devote  this  entire  afternoon  to  a  considera- 
tion of  the  outstanding  figure  in  Ohio  Valley  Indian  history, 
Tecumseh,  but  it  is  necessary  to  omit  not  only  that,  but  also 
interesting  and  dramatic  episodes  in  the  lives  of  all  these  men. 
No  complete  life  of  Tecumseh — one  worthy  of  the  name — has 
been  written.  It  would  require  the  pen  of  a  Parkman  to  do 
justice  to  this  great  personage. 

Logan  himself  was  not  a  Shawano,  but  he  was  associated 
with  what  the  early  settlers  called  the  hostile  element,  which 
I  prefer  to  term  the  patriotic  element  here  in  southern  Ohio. 
That  is,  judged  by  our  standards  of  national  life,  all  that 
these  people  desired  was  to  live  in  contentment  here  in  the 
beautiful  Pickaway  Plains.  Suppose  a  superior  race  should 
suddenly  appear  in  this  portion  of  our  state — a  race  as  far 
above  us  as  we  were  above  the  Indians.  Suppose  that  they 
should  take  our  lands,  inflict  customs  and  manners  of  which 
we  were  totally  unfamiliar  upon  us.     I  am  quite  certain  that, 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  63 

notwithstanding  our  inferiority  to  the  higher  culture  which 
such  newcomers  thrust  upon  us,  we  would  resist  with  every 
resource  at  our  command,  the  destruction  of  our  homes  and 
the  loss  of  our  lands.  In  the  final  analysis  that  is  all  these 
Indians  did. 

TOO   MUCH  EMPHASIS  PLACED   ON   BATTLE-CRUELTY 

Our  early  writers  placed  entirely  too  much  emphasis  on 
the  cruelties  practiced  by  Indians  on  White  people.  They  say 
very  little  concerning  the  ruthless  murder  of  Indian  men,  wo- 
men and  children  by  our  own  ancestors. 

One  of  the  greatest  factors  in  bringing  about  the  troubles 
during  the  period  1740  and  1812  is  set  forth  in  great  detail  by 
Helen  Hunt  Jackson  in  her  famous  "Century  of  Dishonor." 
Perhaps  we  do  not  realize  that  after  White  people  had  se- 
cured most  of  the  land  in  Kentucky,  Pennsylvania  and  Vir- 
ginia, and  began  to  encroach  on  the  north  side  of  the  river, 
that  the  Indians  were  summoned  by  our  authorities  to  a  great 
Council  at  Detroit  in  1786.  They  petitioned  our  President  to 
observe  previous  treaties  and  asked  "prevent  your  surveyors 
and  other  people  from  coming  upon  our  side  of  the  river." 

GOVERNMENT  MADE  TREATIES;  UPHELD 
TRESPASSERS 

The  United  States  Government  had  assured  the  Indians 
they  could  reside  on  their  lands  so  long  as  they  behaved  them- 
selves peacefully,  and  of  trespassers  (Whites)  adds:  "The 
Indians  may  punish  him  as  they  please." 

Notwithstanding  sacred  promises,  the  next  year  our  Presi- 
dent ordered  the  Governor  of  the  Northwest  Territory :  "You 
will  not  neglect  any  opportunity  that  may  offer  for  extinguish- 
ing of  Indian  rights  as  far  westward  as  the  Mississippi." 

In  1792,  the  President  of  the  United  States  utters  these 
significant  words :  "Remember  that  no  additional  lands  will 
be  required  of  you,"  etc. 

And  again,  General  Putnam  said  at  Vincennes:  "The 
United  States  does  not  mean  to  wrong  you  out  of  your  lands." 
This  was  followed  by  an  offer  to  give  the  Indians  a  great  deal 
of  money  for  additional  lands.  The  Indian  spokesman  was 
wise  in  his  day  and  generation.  He  told  the  Commissioners 
that  money  was  of  no  value  to  the  Indians;  that  the  lands 
were  needed  for  the  sustenance  of  women  and  children ;  that 
since  the  White  settlers  were  poor,  therefore  the  proposed 
money  should  be  divided  among  them !  To  this  should  be 
added  the  large  sums  of  money  which  our  Government  must 


64  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

expend  and  pay  in  raising  armies  to  fight  the  Indians !  All 
of  which  was  quite  clever  and  to  the  point. 

Whether  these  logical  statements  had  any  effect  on  our 
Commissioners  I  do  not  know. 

Finally  the  Indians  declined  to  make  further  concessions, 
reminded  the  officials  of  their  repeated  promises  against  fur- 
ther invasions.  General  Anthony  Wayne  wrote  the  Secretary 
of  War  advocating  aggressive  measures  against  the  Indians. 

We  all  know  what  happened.  Their  villages  were 
burned ;  their  cornfields  destroyed,  and  the  Indians  defeated 
in  several  actions. 

In  a  final  treaty  of  1795,  two-thirds  of  the  present  State 
of  Ohio  was  ceded  to  the  United  States,  and  we  solemnly 
guaranteed  these  Indians  all  other  Indian  lands  northward  of 
the  Ohio  River,  eastward  of  the  Mississippi,  and  southward 
of  the  Great  Lakes.  This  would  give  the  Indians  that  north- 
western part  of  our  State,  most  of  Indiana  and  practically  all 
of  Illinois.  It  was  carefully  specified  that  the  Indians  could 
hunt  and  dwell  within  this  territory  as  long  as  they  pleased. 

We  can  dismiss  the  remainder  of  the  wretched  history 
with  a  statement  that  General  Harrison  was  instructed  by 
the  President  (1809)  to  extinguish  Indian  titles,  and  in  1817, 
what  remained  of  this  vast  Indian  domain  was  appropriated 
by  our  people. 

Now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  please  carefully  note  the  fol- 
lowing statement:  With  the  sole  exception  of  the  Iroquois 
treaty  which  still  applies  to  Northern  New  York,  our  great 
and  good  Government  has  never  observed  a  single  treaty 
made  between  ourselves  and  an  Indian  tribe  in  any  state  of 
our  Union.  Is  this  a  record  of  which  one  hundred  percent 
Americans  should  be  proud  ? 

MANY  "FRONTIERSMEN"  WERE   DISSOLUTE  FELLOWS 

What  manner  of  men  were  these  first  traders,  frontiers- 
men and  Indian  fighters?  Johnson,  in  the  New  York  Colonial 
Documents,  Volume  8,  page  460,  sheds  light  on  their  char- 
acters.    He  knew  them : 

"Dissolute  fellows,  united  with  debtors,  and  persons  of  wandering 
disposition,  who  have  been  removing  from  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  etc.,  for 
more  than  ten  years  past  into  Indian  country,  towards  and  on  the  Ohio, 
and  had  made  a  considerable  number  of  settlements  as  early  as  1765, 
when  my  deputy  (Crogan)  was  sent  to  the  Illinois,  from  whence  he  gave 
me  a  particular  account  of  the  uneasiness  it  occasioned  among  the  Indians. 
Many  of  these  emigrants  are  idle  fellows  that  are  too  lazy  to  cultivate 
lands,  and  invited  by  the  plenty  of  game  they  found,  have  employed  them- 
selves in  hunting,  in  which  they  interfere  much  more  with  the  Indians 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  65 

than  if  they  pursued  agriculture  alone,  and  the  Indian  hunters  already 
begin  to  feel  the  scarcity  this  has  occasioned,  which  greatly  increases  their 
resentment." 

The  instinct  of  self-preservation  is  strong  in  all  races. 
These  Ohio  Indians  were  beset  on  all  sides  by  enemies.  Then 
came  our  Peace  Commissioners,  from  Philadelphia,  then  the 
seat  of  our  Government,  and  they  spoke  honeyed  words,  pre- 
sented a  paper,  and  again  the  chiefs  affixed  their  totems  to 
that  document.  Our  Shawano  could  have  removed  from 
these  beautiful  Scioto  fields  to  the  Miami,  thence  to  the  Wa- 
bash, and  then  to  the  Illinois.  They  would  have  gained  but 
a  few  short  years,  because  the  land  grabbers  would  have  fol- 
lowed them  clear  across  the  Middle  West.  The  tide  of  White 
immigration  could  be  stayed  by  armed  force — by  no  other 
means.  Tecumseh,  Logan,  Cornstalk,  Black  Fish,  and  the 
other  chiefs,  realized  this.  The  war  hatchet  was  thrown 
down  and  they  took  it  up.  They  resisted  to  the  nth  degree. 
Those  who  tamely  submit  to  imposition  are  not  only  held  in 
contempt  by  their  adversaries,  but  they  leave  no  mark  on  the 
page  of  history.  We  respect  them  because  they  were  real 
men. 

INDIANS  LIVED  COMFORTABLY  IN  CABINS 

Were  our  Ohio  Indians  always  fighting?  By  no  means. 
Their  life  here,  and  at  other  Indian  settlements,  was  exceed- 
ingly pleasant.  There  was  an  abundance  of  game ;  they  lived 
in  comfortable  cabins,  and  raised  crops.  At  the  time  Colonel 
Boquet  marched  to  the  Muskingum  over  two  hundred  White 
captives  were  surrendered  by  the  Indians.  Large  numbers  of 
these  had  to  be  bound  because  they  desired  to  remain  with 
the  Indians.  Numbers  afterwards  escaped  and  returned  to 
the  Indian  life.  Does  anyone  suppose  that  if  they  had  been 
shamefully  treated,  Boquet's  narrative  would  have  made  such 
statements  ? 

On  Muskingum  River,  Heckewelder  and  Zeisberger  had 
built  up  a  very  successful  mission.  For  a  long  time  it  was  the 
only  well  built,  well  ordered,  Christian  town  in  the  whole  Ohio 
region.  It  was  the  outpost  of  civilization.  Yet  one  William- 
son, accompanied  by  a  large  party  of  freebooters  and  fron- 
tiersmen from  Kentucky,  without  justification,  murdered  up- 
wards of  ninety  Christian  men,  women  and  children.  Not 
one  of  them  was  armed,  and  most  of  them  were  killed  within 
the  church.  It  was  one  of  the  most  outrageous  and  cold- 
blooded murders  ever  perpetrated  in  American  history.  I 
challenge  anyone  to  cite  an  incident  where  persons  assembled 
at  Divine  worship,  in  a  sacred  church,  were  deliberately  mur- 
dered by  those  against  whom  they  had  perpetrated  no  wrong. 


GG  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

DESTROYER  WILLIAMSON  MEETS  REAL  INDIAN 

FIGHTERS 

What  was  the  result?  Williamson,  accompanied  by 
Colonel  Crawford,  Dr.  Knight,  and  a  large  force,  marched 
north  sometime  later  to  attack  the  Indian  towns  near  the  San- 
dusky Plains.  They  were  surprised  by  real  lighting  Indians, 
not  harmless  mission  converts.  The  Indians  desired  above  all 
things  to  seize  Williamson,  and  be  revenged  for  the  murder 
of  their  kinsfolk.  Heckewelder  states  the  Indians  ran  about 
crying,  "Where  is  Williamson?"  He,  however,  secured  a  fast 
horse,  and  escaped  from  the  action.  Poor  Colonel  Crawford 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  exasperated  savages  and  was  tor- 
tured to  death,  all  of  which  was  both  cruel  and  wicked.  I 
am  sorry  that  those  who  love  to  dwell  on  the  tortures  of  Craw- 
ford always  gloss  over  what  happened  previous  to  the  Craw- 
ford affair.  Please  read  Heckewelder's  narrative,  as  to  why 
Crawford  was  killed. 

LOGAN,    GREAT    ORATOR;    TECUMSEH,    GREAT    WAR 

CHIEF 

Let  us  consider  finally,  Logan  and  Tecumseh,  particularly 
the  latter.  Logan's  fame  rests  upon  his  great  oration,  and 
before  you  leave  this  field  I  trust  you  will  read  it.  It  is  in  im- 
perishable bronze  over  there,  now  standing  in  this  park. 

Joseph  Brant  (The-yen-da-na-ga),  the  great  Iroquois 
war-chief,  visited  the  Ohio  Valley.     He  knew  Tecumseh. 

Tecumseh  and  Joseph  Brant  have  much  in  common. 
Both  were  leaders,  highly  intelligent,  brave  and  fighting  men. 
Each  was  a  born  orator,  and  each  knew  how  to  play  on  the 
feelings  of  his  followers.  The  martial  spirit  appealed  to  both 
alike.  It  was  Brant,  when  asked  by  the  King  of  England, 
"Are  you  fond  of  music?"  who  replied,  "I  like  the  harp,  I 
like  the  organ  much  better,  but  I  love  the  fife  and  drum  best 
of  all  because  they  make  my  heart  beat  quick."  It  was  Te- 
cumseh who,  when  asked  to  sit  upon  the  platform  with  the 
officers  at  one  of  the  treaties,  and  not  wishing  to  place  him- 
self in  the  power  of  White  men  whom  he  had  every  reason 
to  distrust,  uttered  this  significant  epigram :  "The  sun  is  my 
father,  the  earth  is  my  mother,  on  her  bosom  I  will  repose," 
and  seated  himself  among  his  warriors. 

It  is  now  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  since  the  Shawano 
left  this  part  of  Ohio.  It  is  more  than  one  hundred  years 
since  they  have  resided  in  any  numbers  within  the  borders  of 
our  state.  There  are  no  full  blood  Shawanoes  remaining  in 
either  Kansas  or  Oklahoma.     We  have  inherited  this  vast  do- 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  67 

main.  The  Indian  life  is  all  a  memory,  a  dim  tradition. 
Those  wars  of  long  ago  are  forgotten!  likewise  the  cruelties 
which  were  practiced  with  equal  fervor  by  both  Reds  and 
Whites.  It  is  well  that  we  have  erected  monuments  to  our 
military  leaders  and  our  first  settlers,  and  it  is  exceedingly 
fitting  that  the  most  imposing  one  of  the  four  here  is  the 
tribute  to  Logan  himself.  I  say  "four"  because  the  great 
Logan  Elm  was  the  first,  the  real  monument. 

Logan's  speech,  rather  than  Dunmore's  treaty,  renders 
this  spot  immortal.  And  the  greatest  and  noblest  of  them 
all — Tecumseh — who  fought  men,  and  killed  neither  women 
nor  children — does  he  not  deserve  a  shaft  ?  I  would  that  we 
knew  the  exact  spot  of  his  birth — where  the  Prophet,  his 
brother,  and  himself  saw  the  light  of  day. 

The  Ohio  country  is  our  heritage — we  can  well  afford 
to  be  gracious.  Let  us  not  omit  the  name  of  Tecumseh  from 
our  records  in  stone  and  bronze. 

DISPLAYS  INDIANS'  ANCIENT  WAR  FLAG 

In  the  northwestern  part  of  our  State,  and  also  in  that 
last  engagement  on  the  Thames,  fought  side  by  side  the 
northern  Algonquins,  the  Ojibwa,  with  our  Ohio  Algonquins, 
the  Shawano.  Let  me  present  to  you  the  original  Ojibwa  war 
flag.  It  is  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  old,  and  the  Chiefs 
Me-shusk-gee-shig  and  Mah-in-gonce  gave  it  to  me  at  White 
Earth  reservation  in  Minnesota  in  the  year  1909,  and  it  be- 
longs to  our  Museum  at  Andover.  It  is  of  owl  and  not  eagle 
feathers,  for  the  owl  was  sacred  to  the  Ojibwa.  Ne-gan-ne- 
bin-ace,  their  fighting  chief,  carried  it.  It  was  captured  by 
the  Sioux,  enemies  of  the  Ojibwa,  held  for  many  years,  and 
retaken  by  Ne-gan-ne-bin-ace  and  his  brave  warriors.  Prob- 
ably the  only  positively  old  and  original  Indian  flag  belong- 
ing to  Eastern  Algonquins  in  existence  today.  The  Indians 
prized  and  revered  it,  even  as  we  do  "Old  Glory,"  our  own 
sacred  symbol.  No  emblem  belonging  to  our  own  Ohio  In- 
dians remains — therefore  I  do  not  consider  it  inappropriate 
to  exhibit  that  one  carried  by  their  allies.  (Here  he  exhibited 
the  feather  flag.) 

The  villages  of  these  simple,  yet  heroic,  Shawanoes  are 
gone  forever.  Tecumseh  lies  in  an  unknown  and  forgotten 
grave.  All  our  treaties  with  his  band  were  deliberately 
broken  by  us.  We  cannot  undo  the  evils  of  the  past,  but  it 
is  not  too  late  to  honor  the  memory  of  him  who  stood  fore- 
most among  American  aborigines.  Well  may  it  be  said  of 
him:  "Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  that  he  die  for  his 
country."  Certainly  his  deeds  and  his  character  merit  a  dig- 
nified and  a  fitting  memorial. 


<i8  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


AGRICULTURE  OF  THE  RED  MEN 


WHO  built  the  mounds?  is  a  question  we  are  not  attempt- 
ing to  answer.  However,  we  do  want  to  impress  upon 
the  reader  that  the  Red  Men,  as  discovered  by  the  White  Men, 
were  a  great  people;  that  their  towns  were  populous;  that 
their  condition  was  comfortable;  that  their  character,  be- 
fore they  were  aroused  by  foreign  influences,  was  peaceful. 
To  become  still  better  acquainted  with  the  Red  Men  we 
reprint  herewith  excerpts  from  the  reports  of  just  a  few  of 
the  early  explorers  that  contain  references  to  the  agriculture 
practiced  by  the  then  existing  Red  Men.  (Twelfth  Annual 
Report,  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1891,  pages  615-618.) 

"When  first  visited  by  Europeans  there  was  scarcely  a 
tribe  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  borders  of  the  western  plains 
but  that  had  its  fixed  seat,  its  local  habitation,  and  subsisted 
to  a  very  large  extent  upon  the  products  of  agriculture. 

"DeSoto  found  all  the  tribes  he  visited,  from  the  Florida 
peninsula  to  the  western  part  of  Arkansas,  cultivating  maize 
and  various  vegetables. 

"The  early  voyagers  along  the  Atlantic  shore  found  the 
same  thing  true  from  Florida  to  Massachusetts.  Capt.  John 
Smith  and  his  colony,  and  in  fact  all  the  early  colonies,  de- 
pended very  largely  for  subsistence  upon  this  fact.  Jacques 
Cartier  found  the  inhabitants  of  old  Hochelaga  cultivating 
maize.  Champlain  testifies  the  same  thing's  being  true  of 
the  Iroquois.  LaSalle  and  his  companions  observed  the  In- 
dians of  Illinois,  and  from  thence  southward  along  the  Mis- 
sissippi, cultivating  and  to  a  large  extent  subsisting  upon 
maize. 

HARIOT,  1587,  DESCRIBES  CROPS  CULTIVATED 

"Thomas  Hariot,  a  very  intelligent  and  reliable  observer, 
gives  the  following  notes  in  regard  to  the  cultivating  of  maize 
and  vegetables  by  the  Indians  of  the  Virginia  coast : 

Pagatowr,  a  kind  of  grain  so   called  by  the  inhabitants;  the  same  in 
the  West  Indies  is  called  M&yze,  Englishman  call  it  Guiny-wheat  or  Tur- 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  69 

key-wheat,  according  to  the  names  of  the  countries  from  whence  the  like 
hath  been  brought.  The  grain  is  about  the  bigness  of  our  ordinary  Eng- 
lish peas  and  not  much  different  in  form  and  shape;  but  of  divers  colors, 
some  white,  some  red,  some  yellow  and  some  blue.  All  of  these  yield 
a  very  white  and  sweet  flour,  being  used  according  to  his  kind,  it  maketh 
a  very  good  bread. — *      *      * 

Okindgier,  called  by  us  beans,  because  in  greatness  and  partly  in 
shape  they  are  like  the  beans  in  England,  saving  that  they  are  flat- 
ter.     *      *      * 

Wickonzowr,  called  by  us  pease,  in  respect  of  the  beans  for  distinc- 
tions sake,  because  they  are  much  less  although  in  form  they  little 
differ.      *      *      * 

Macoqwer,  according  to  their  several  forms,  called  by  us  Pompions, 
Melons,  and  Gourds  because  they  are  of  like  forms  as  those  kinds  in 
England. 

All  the  aforesaid  commodities  for  victual  are  set  or  sowed,  some- 
times in  grounds  apart  and  severally  by  themselves,  but  for  the  most  part 
together  in  one  ground  mixtly:  the  manner  thereof  with  the  dressing  and 
preparing  of  the  ground,  because  I  will  note  unto  you  the  fertility  of  the 
soil,  I  think  good  briefly  to  describe. 

The  ground  they  never  fatten  with  muck,  dung  or  anything,  neither 
plow  nor  dig  it  as  we  do  in  England,  but  only  prepare  it  in  sort  as  fol- 
loweth:  A  few  days  before  they  sow  or  set,  the  men  with  wooden  instru- 
ments made  almost  in  the  form  of  mattocks  or  hoes  with  long  handles, 
the  women  with  short  peckers  or  parers,  because  they  use  them  sitting, 
of  a  foot  long,  and  about  five  inches  in  breadth,  do  only  break  the 
upper  part  of  the  ground  to  raise  up  the  weeds,  grass  and  old  stubs  of 
cornstalks  with  their  roots.  The  which  after  a  day  or  two  days  drying 
in  the  sun,  being  scraped  up  into  many  small  heaps,  to  save  them  labor 
for  carrying  them  away,  they  burn  to  ashes.  And  whereas  some  may 
think  that  they  use  the  ashes  for  to  better  the  ground,  I  say  that  then 
they  would  either  disperse  the  ashes  abroad,  which  we  observe  they  do 
not,  except  the  heaps  be  too  great,  or  else  would  take  special  care  to 
set  their  corn  where  the  ashes  lie,  which  also  we  find  they  are  careless 
of.     And  this  is  all  the  husbanding  of  their  ground  that  they  use. 

Then  their  setting  or  sowing  is  after  this  manner.  First,  for  their 
corn,  beginning  in  one  corner  of  the  plot  with  a  pecker  they  make  a  hole 
wherein  they  put  out  four  grains,  with  great  care  that  they  touch  not  one 
another,  (about  an  inch  asunder)  and  cover  them  with  the  mould  again; 
and  so  throughout  the  whole  plot,  making  such  holes  and  using  them  after 
such  manner,  but  with  this  regard,  that  they  may  be  made  in  ranks,  every 
rank  differing  from  the  other  half  a  fathom  or  a  yard,  and  the  holes  also 
in  every  rank.  By  this  means  there  is  a  yard  of  spare  ground  between 
every  hole ;  where,  according  to  discretion  here  and  there  they  set  as  many 
beans  and  pease;  in  divers  places  also  among  the  seeds  of  Macocqwer, 
Melden   and    Planta  Solis.      *      *      *      There   is   an   herb   which    is    sowed 


70  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

apart  by  itself,  and  it  is  called  by  the  inhabitants  Uppowoc;  in  the  West 
Indies  it  has  divers  names  according  to  the  several  places  and  countries 
where  it  groweth  and  is  used;  the  Spaniards  call  it  tobacco,  the  leaves 
thereof  being  dried  and  brought  into  powder  they  use  to  take  the  fume 
or  smoke  thereof  by  sucking  it  through  pipes  made  of  clay,  into  their 
stomach  and  head,  from  whence  it  purgeth  superfluous  fleame  and  other 
gross  humors,  and  openeth  all  the  pores  and  passages  of  the  body;  by 
which  means  the  use  thereof  not  only  preserves  the  body  from  obstruc- 
tion, but  also  (if  any  be  so  that  they  have  not  been  of  too  long  continu- 
ance) in  short  time  breaketh  them;  whereby  their  bodies  are  notably  pre- 
served in  health,  and  know  not  many  grievous  diseases,  wherewithal  we 
in  England  are  oftentimes  afflicted. — Hariot  (Thomas) — "A  Brief  &  True 
Report,"  etc.,  of  Virginia,  Reprint,  N.  Y.,  1872,  pages  13-16. 

"This,  we  must  bear  in  mind,  was  written  in  1587,  nearly 
twenty  years  before  the  first  permanent  European  settlement 
in  Virginia.  Another  point  worthy  of  notice  as  indicative  of 
considerable  experience  in  cultivation  is  that  there  were  in 
use  in  the  section  visited  by  Mr.  Hariot  four  varieties  of 
maize. 


BEVERLY    GIVES    EVIDENCE    OF    LONG    CULTIVATION 

OF  MAIZE,  ETC. 


Beverly,  in  his  History  of  Virginia  (Second  edition,  Lon- 
don, 1722,  pages  125-128,  says: 

Besides  all  these,  our  natives  had  originally  amongst  them,  Indian 
corn,  Peas,  Beans,  Potatoes   (Sweet  Potatoes)   and  Tobacco. 

This  Indian  corn  was  the  staff  of  food  upon  which  the  Indians  did 
ever  depend;  for  when  sickness,  bad  weather,  war  or  any  other  accident 
kept  them  from  hunting,  fishing  and  fowling,  this,  with  the  addition  of 
some  Peas,  Beans  and  such  other  fruits  of  the  Earth,  as  were  then  in 
season,  was  the  family's  dependence  and  support  of  their  women  and 
children. 

There  are  four  sorts  of  Indian  corn,  two  of  which  are  early  ripe,  and 
two  late  ripe,  all  growing  in  the  same  manner.  Every  single  grain  of 
this  when  planted  produces  a  tall  up-right  stalk  which  has  several  ears 
hanging  on  the  sides  of  it,  from  six  to  ten  inches  long.  *  *  *  The 
late  corn  is  diversify'ed  by  the  shape  of  the  grain  only,  without  respect 
to  the  accidental  differences  in  colour,  some  being  blue,  some  yellow,  some 
white  and  some  streak'd.  That  therefore  which  makes  the  distinction  is 
the  plumpness  or  shriveling  of  the  grain;  the  one  looks  as  smooth  and  as 
full  as  the  early  ripe  corn  and  this  they  call  flint  corn;  the  other  has  a 
larger  grain  and  looks  shrivell'd  with  a  dent  in  the  back  of  the  grain  as 
if  it  had  never  come  into  perfection,  and  this  they  call  she-corn. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  71 

All  these  sorts  are  planted  alike  in  rows,  three,  four  or  five  grains 

i„   -   hill    the   larger  sort  at  four  or  five  foot  distance,  the   lesser  sort 
,n   a  h.ll,  the   larger  ^  ^  ^  weedlngs  and  make  a 

hT     out  it   and T  thetbor  las  done.     They  likewise  plant  a  hean  » 

,u        ™„ Vil    with  the  corn,  upon  whose  stalk  it  sustains  itself. 

th<5  "he  In  ia"      sow'd  pe^s   sometimes  in  the  intervals  of  the  rows  of 

and  lomiimtf  Z'ZY^l  hig  as  hoth  the  leg  and  thigh  of  a  young 

w,r  raisfift*  as-i  r  - «-*  -y  n0w 

depending  chiefly  upon  the  English  for  what  they  smoak. 

This  long  extract  from  Beverly  has  been  given,  as  it  fur- 
nishes additional  evidence  of  the  long  cultivation  of  maize,  the 
varieties  being  the  same  now  chiefly  m  use  in  the  South. 

MARQUETTE  AND  OTHERS  ADD  INTERESTING 
TESTIMONY 

Marquette,  speaking  of  the  Illinois  Indians  (Voyages  and 
Discoveries,  English  translation  Historical  CoHectaons  erf  Lou- 
isiana,  1852,  vol.  iv,  page  33.  Original  French,  page  246)  as 
seen  by  him  on  his  first  visit,  remarks : 

They  live  by  game,  which  is  abundant  in  this  country,  and  on  Indian 
Corn  (bled  d'inde),  of  which  they  always  gather  a  good  crop,  so  that  they 
hav"  never  suffered  by  famine.  They  also  sow  beans  and  melons,  whicn 
^excellent,  especially  those  with  a  red  seed.  Their  squashes  are  not  of 
the  best:  they  dry  them  in  the  sun  to  eat  in  the  winter  and  spring. 

In  the  Jesuit  Relations  for  1640  (Reprint  1858)  volume  I, 
page  35,  we  find  that  twenty-nine  tribes  living  south  of  the 
fakes  are  mentioned  as  sedentary  and  cultivators  of  the  sod. 
LeClerq  (Estab.  of  the  Faith.  Shea's  translation,  1881,  vol- 
ume I  Page  HO)  says  that  "The  Algomqums,  Iroquois 
Hurons,  Nipsiriniens,  Neuters,  and  Five  Nations  were  indeed 
sedentary." 

DuPratz  (DuPratz  Hist.  La.,  volume  II,  page  239  (Lon- 
don, 1763.)  French  ed.,  Paris,  1758,  Volume  III,  page  8) 
says: 

-All  the  nations  I  have  known,   and  who   inhabit  from  the  sea  as 


72  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

far  as  the  Illinois,  and  even  farther,  which  is  a  space  of  about  1,500  miles, 
carefully  cultivate  the  maize  corn,  which  they  make  their  principal  sub- 
sistence." 

According  to  Jacques  Cartier,  who  visited  Canada  as 
early  as  1535,  and  was,  so  far  as  known,  the  first  European 
explorer  who  passed  up  the  St.  Lawrence,  the  Indians  of 
Hochelaga  (now  Montreal)  "had  good  and  large  fields  of 
corn,  *  *  *  which  they  preserve  in  garets  at  the  top 
of  their  houses.,,  (Hakluyt's  Voyages  (London,  1810),  vol- 
ume III,  page  272.) 

Champlain  (Voyages  de  Champlain,  liv.  iv,  caps  8,  Paris, 
1632)  speaking  in  A.  D.  1610,  of  the  Indians  immediately 
around  Lakes  Erie  and  Ontario,  says  that  most  of  them  cul- 
tivated corn,  which  was  their  principal  article  of  food,  and 
which  they  also  exchanged  for  skins  with  the  hunter  tribes  liv- 
ing to  the  north.  They  stored  it  in  the  top  of  their  houses, 
and  cultivated  it  in  quantities  so  that  they  might  have  on 
hand  a  supply  large  enough  to  last  three  or  four  years  in 
case  of  failure  of  the  crop.. —  (Voyages  de  Champlain,  page 
301.  Sagard,  Voyagess  du  pays  des  Hurons,  Paris,  1632,  page 
134.     Edn.  1865,  part  1,  page  92.) 

The  amount  of  corn  of  the  Iroquois  destroyed  by  Denon- 
ville  in  1687  is  estimated  at  more  than  a  million  bushels. — 
(Charlevoix,  Hist.  Nouv.  France,  Paris,  1744,  volume  II,  page 
355.  Doc.  Hist.  N.  Y.  1st  series,  1849,  page  238.)  Accord- 
ing to  Tonty,  who  took  part  in  the  expedition,  they  were  seven 
days  engaged  in  cutting  up  the  corn  of  four  villages. —  (Hist. 
Coll.  La.,  Volume  I,  page  70.) 


MODERN  CORN-CRIB  OF  INDIAN  ORIGIN 


It  is  from  the  Southern  Indians  that  the  farmers  of  today 
derive  the  method  of  constructing  cribs  on  posts  to  secure  their 
corn  against  vermin  as  is  evident  from  the  following  passage 
in  Lawson's  History : 

These  Santee  Indians  *  ::"  *  make  themselves  cribs  after  a 
very  curious  manner,  wherein  they  secure  their  corn  from  vermin,  which 
are  more  frequent  in  these  warm  climates  than  countries  more  distant 
from  the  sun.  These  pretty  fabrics  are  commonly  supported  with  eight 
feet  or  posts  about  7  feet  from  the  ground,  well  daubed  within  and  with- 
out upon  laths  with  loam  or  clay,  which  makes  them  tight  and  fit  to  keep 
out  the  smallest  insect,  there  being  a  small  door  at  the  gable  end,  which 
is  made  of  the  same  composition.      (Raleigh,  ed.   I860,  page  35.) 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS  73 

In  regard  to  the  Gulf  States  east  of  the  Mississippi  and 
also  Arkansas,  the  evidence  on  the  agricultural  tendencies  of 
the  natives  is  so  abundant  that  we  can  not  give  space  here 
for  more  than  a  mere  summary.  Corn  was  grown  every- 
where in  great  abundance.  DeSoto  and  his  Spanish  follow- 
ers, amounting  at  the  outset  to  more  than  600  men,  200  horses, 
and  a  drove  of  hogs,  subsisted  almost  wholly  upon  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  natives'  fields.  The  amount  of  game  taken  dur- 
ing the  four  years  they  were  traversing  the  country  would 
scarcely  have  sufficed  them  for  a  single  month. 

DE  SOTO'S  CHRONICLERS  TELL  OF  ABUNDANT  INDIAN 

CROPS 

Such  expressions  as  the  following  are  abundant  in  the 
narratives  of  the  chroniclers  of  this  ill-starred  expedition : 

"In  the  barns  and  in  the  fields,  great  store  of  maize. 
*  *  *  Many  sown  fields  which  reached  from  one  town  to 
the  other."  (Gentleman  of  Elvas.  Hist.  Coll.  La.,  Volume  II, 
page  153.)  'The  maize  that  was  in  the  other  towns  was 
brought  hither;  and  in  all,  it  was  esteemed  to  be  six  thousand 
hanegs  (fanegas)."  "As  soon  as  they  came  to  Cale  the  gov- 
ernor commanded  them  to  gather  all  the  maize  that  was  ripe 
in  the  field,  which  was  sufficient  for  three  months."  (Ibid., 
page  130.) 

When  we  remember  that  this  was  sufficient  for  600  men, 
200  horses  and  a  hundred  or  more  hogs,  and  that  it  was  taken 
from  the  field  of  a  single  Indian  town,  we  can  readily  appre- 
ciate the  fact  that  these  natives  were  agriculturists,  notwith- 
standing the  statements  of  some  modern  archaeologists  to  the 
contrary. 

It  is  stated  in  Barnard  de  la  Harpe's  "Journal"  that  M.  le 
Sueur  "sent  two  Canadians  to  invite  Avavois  and  the  Octo- 
tatas  to  settle  near  the  fort  because  they  were  good  farmers 
and  he  wished  to  employ  them  in  cultivating  the  land  and 
working  the  mines." 

Such  is  the  testimony  of  only  a  few  of  the  older  author- 
ities and  of  those  who  have  studied  the  history  of  the  discov- 
eries of  our  continent  and  the  early  European  intercourse  with 
its  aborigines. 


74  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


AMERICA'S  DEBT  TO  THE  RED  MEN 


A  FRIEND,  who  for  years  was  editor  of  a  newspaper, 
asked  :  "Of  what  use  is  it  to  study  American  prehistoric 
peoples?  They  have  done  nothing  for  the  human  race  as  it 
is  to-day." 

Our  friend  did  not  analyze  his  question  before  he  asked 
it,  for  the  very  spirit  of  America  comes  from  these  little 
known  prehistoric  Americans. 

They  left  no  nomenclature,  no  letters;  made  no  discov- 
eries in  metalurgy.  But  they  have  left  records  of  long  con- 
tinued occupation  of  great  stretches  of  territory,  and  they 
left  us  that  which  is  worth  more  than  all  the  gold  of  America ; 
they  left  us — Food. 

Civilizations  thrive  on  food,  and  plenty  of  it. 

Besides  giving  us  tobacco,  pre-Columbian  Indians  gave  us 
the  yam,  the  sweet  potato,  the  "Irish"  potato,  various  varieties 
of  peas,  beans,  squashes,  gourds,  melons,  etc.,  etc.,  and,  be- 
yond all  price  to  American  independence  and  agricultural 
wealth — corn  in  its  several  varieties :  popcorn,  sugar  corn, 
sixty-day  corn,  one  hundred  and  twenty  day  corn. 

And  corn,  to  our  mind,  is  the  one  great  contribution  to 
America.  The  cultivation  of  corn  created  American  farmers 
and  keeps  them  the  independent  citizens  they  are. 

In  pioneer  days,  the  value  of  corn  was  inestimable.  Un- 
like wheat,  which  must  be  harvested  within  two  certain  weeks 
or  the  farmer  must  sustain  great  losses  by  its  shelling  out, 
corn  can  remain  on  its  stalk  safely  shielded  by  a  thick  husk 
all  during  autumn  and  winter. 

The  storage  of  wheat  is  a  difficult  matter,  necessitating 
tight  bins  and  shelters.  The  wheat  grower  must  market  his 
wheat  immediately,  for  lack  of  proper  shelter,  while  the  corn 
grower  can  use  his  convenience,  as  the  corn  can  be  kept  in 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


75 


almost  open  cribs  made  of  rough  rails  or  logs,  and  will  keep 
until  used  or  sold. 

The  European  wheat  growers  remain  peasants  and  serfs 
because  they  sell  their  wheat,  millet,  rye,  oats  and  barley 
at  harvest;  while  American  growers  can  pile  up  their  corn, 
feed  it  to  animals,  hold  it  for  fair  prices,  and  are  indepen- 
dent, self-reliant  farmers  and  land  owners  in  consequence. 

And  to  the  prehistoric  American  Indian  who  first  saved 
and  planted  the  seed  of  the  wild  "grass"  from  which  later 
generations  developed  "corn,"  America  owes  much. 

We  have  many  monuments  for  humanity's  benefactors, 
but  no  people  benefitted  America  more  than  the  Indians,  who, 
in  a  distant  past  age  developed  our  American  Corn. 


DICKSON'S  UNFINISHED  NEW  WORK 

This  shows  the  beginning  of  excavations  in  a  hitherto  unexplored 
portion  of  Dickson's  Mound.  At  the  present  time,  June,  1928,  no  doubt 
many  other  intensely  interesting  things  have  been  uncovered. 


76  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

DID  THOUSANDS  LEAVE  AMERICAN 
BOTTOMS  SUDDENLY? 


IN  the  face  of  the  evidences  of  almost  a  dense  prehistoric 
population  throughout  this  portion  of  Illinois,  the  questions 
arise  :  How  did  such  vast  numbers  utterly  disappear?  Where 
did  they  go  ?  Why  did  they  leave  this  ideal  situation  which 
they  had  occupied  for  so  long  a  time  ? 

H.  M.  Brackinridge,  writing  in  1811,  gives  the  following 
word  picture  of  the  situation  where  East  St.  Louis  is  now 
located : 

"There  is  no  spot  in  the  western  country  capable  of  being 
more  highly  cultivated,  or  of  giving  support  to  a  numerous 
population,  than  this  valley.  If  any  vestige  of  ancient  popula- 
tion were  to  be  found,  this  would  be  the  place  to  search  for  it ; 
accordingly  this  tract,  as  also  the  tract  on  the  western  side 
(where  is  now  the  city  of  St.  Louis),  exhibits  proof  of  an  im- 
mense population.  If  the  city  of  Philadelphia  were  deserted, 
there  would  not  be  more  numerous  traces  of  human  existence. 

"The  great  number  of  mounds,  and  the  astonishing  quan- 
tity of  human  bones  dug  up  everywhere,  or  found  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  ground,  with  a  thousand  other  appearances,  an- 
nounce that  this  valley  was  at  one  time  filled  with  habitations 
and  villages.  The  whole  face  of  the  bluff  or  hill  which 
bounds  it  on  the  east  appears  to  have  been  a  continued  bury- 
ing ground."      *      *      *     *      * 

An  answer  to  the  causes  of  their  extinction  may  be  sur- 
mised when  we  consider  the  facts : 

The  white  conquerors,  arriving  in  Mexico  in  1498-1500. 
brought  with  them,  besides  their  peculiarly  bloody,  preda 
tory  ideas  and  actions,  many  diseases.  There  is  no  doubt  in 
our  mind  that  smallpox  and  measles  penetrated  from  tribe 
to  tribe  to  the  far  reaches  of  this  broad  land,  wiping  out 
entire  tribes  and  nations,  in  spots  not  visited  by  white  man 
until  two  hundred  years  later.  We  believe  it  to  be  reason- 
ably well  established  that  the  Western  Hemisphere  was  free 
from  those  two  diseases  at  the  time  of  its  occupancy  by  the 
whites. 


MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 


77 


It  is  not  a  mere  desire  to  hoard  something  that  causes  one  to  gather 
relics  of  the  forgotten  peoples  of  the  American  Bottoms.  Rather  does  each 
piece  give  one  a  new  thrill  of  expectation  of  a  nearer  approach  to  tho 
wordless  history  of  a  people  who  lived,  who  thrived,  who  loved,  in  the 
fair  land  where  we  now  struggle  for  a  satisfactory  "living." 

To  my  "relic  cabinet"  I  owe  many  pleasant  hours  in  the  fields  and 
woodlands,  on  the  streams,  and  in  meeting  and  talking  with  fellow  men 
whom  I  never  would  otherwise  have  met.  The  hunt  for  these  bits  of 
history  leads  one  not  only  into  sunny  fields,  but  also  into  the  dusty 
old  volumes  in  neglected  nooks  of  libraries  and  old  book  shops.  No  matter 
where  the  hunt  leads,  one  is  always  finding  something — something  not  only 
of  the  Red  Men  but  necessarily  one  learns  things  about  the  early  history 
of  the  discoverers  and  founders  of  our  good  old  United  States. 


78  MOUND  BUILDERS  OF  ILLINOIS 

INJUN  STUFF 


HE: 

Weather's  too  hot  to  work  to-day, 

Might  get  all  het  up. 
Chickens'  layin'  in  the  shade, 

So's  the  yeller  pup. 
It's  jest  too  wet  to  make  that  hay ; 
So  I'll  slip  down  the  old  pathway 
Into  the  bottom  cornfield. 
There  I'll  dig  and  hunt  'em  with  a  vim 
Which  ain't  no  vice — it's  jest  a  whim — 

Huntin'  arrowheads! 

SHE: 

Shelves'  full  and  mantle  full — 

Still  there's  not  enough 
Axes,  celts  and  banner  stones, 

And  other  Injun  stuff. 
But  some  men  play  the  races — 

Bet  their  last  red  penny, 
Until  there's  nothing  left  at  home — 

Home — they  ain't  got  any ! 
And  some  men  make  a  hobby 
Of  near-beer,  gin  and  wine, 
Until  they  look  like  big,  fat  bottles, 

And  let  their  noses  shine. 
So  let  my  husband  hunt  his  rocks, 

Carved  by  craftsmen  long  since  dead ; 
Let  him  be  happy  'cause  he's  found 

One  more  arrowhead ! 

—MRS.  T.  W.  McMILLAN,  Mt.  Pleasant,  Iowa. 


